Ongoing Projects - Embroidery

BACKGROUND ON HAND EMBROIDERY

Not much can be written about the inherent embroidery craft of the state. Traditionally the embroidery existing was very similar to what is done now in Bihar and Bengal. The basic difference being in the thickness of the running stitches and the motif usage.

There seems almost no embroiderers are now involved in making the traditional pieces. The ladies involved in this art are simply trained from training centers which followed a very modern school kind of teaching eventually killing the inherent art which existed in any form. What we see now are just skilled labors for embroidery not craftsmen.

It will take immense development work to revive this craft to put it again back in the craft map of the state.

OBJECTIVE:

Value addition to the textiles and embroideries of Khunti for increased national and international acceptance.

Design intervention. Marketing and promotion. Technical up gradation. Quality control. Community development.

• To identify the existing weaving and embroidery practices in various regions of Khunti and identify those that has the maximum potential for development in relevance to the project.
• To set up workshop involving the weavers and the designers that will assess and execute design interventions that can enhance existing products for increased global acceptance. This design intervention will include experimentation with the various textile /emb. arts practiced across India and their probable adaptation into Jharkhand craft.
• Establishment and securing of markets, in India and abroad, for products developed, through the efforts of the project, and their continued promotion and sales. Establishing quality standards to fulfill export requirements.
• Documentation and cataloguing of actual traditional samples and explorations, developed products, lifestyle and environment of the craftspeople. Suggestions and directives for future improvements and intervention and solutions to existing hurdles.

MODULES

• Categorizing the weavers and embroiders in accordance with geographical region and tribe classification. Each region specializes in one specific form of style, which is remarkably different from the rest. Emphasis would be on segregating these artisans according to the technique. In the present scenario weavers and embroiders are making fabrics which are so specific to the market, that in-turn they are losing the inherent unique styles. The categorization would help enable the re-promotion of the lost and dying techniques, which when explored properly will open new avenues.
• Special emphasis on adapting the techniques of weaving finer fabrics.
• To study the availability of raw materials and equipments in order to facilitate the creation of TWO sets of all the traditional pieces known to the craftsmen. This will enable the creation of a catalogue of the existing designs and get orders from buyers and interested collectors or museums. The making of traditional pieces generate interface for education for the craftspeople and create the necessary ground for the following design intervention.
• Parallel research in Delhi and other places for possible outlets and channels for the finished products. The research would be directed towards meeting designers, museum curators and all other potential buyers for getting orders for these crafts.
• After the craftsmen have achieved a certain level of confidence in their work a more thoughtful design intervention is to be done in accordance to the cultural and ethnic value of the craft for the development of new unique products which are feasible for the market and yet retains all the beauty and authenticity of the craft.
• Exchange programs of craftsmen and cross-learning activities. Cross regional exchange programs of the craftsmen from Jharkhand to various international and national textile, garment and furnishing fairs would enable them to understand the international market, trends and quality standards. It would also be a major motivating factor for the development of totally new ideas for weavers/embroiders in terms of newer techniques, colours and other influences. The new designs after this stage would have a unique market value.
• To re-introduce motif usage from borrowing it from other crafts of Jharkhand to have a holistic balance of all the existing crafts of the state.
• The eventual aim of this project is to make all the craftsmen self-sustainable to meet the world and have an impact on the crafts map of the world.

ANALYSIS

It is indeed a challenging task to re-establish the art and craft of Khunti region, but properly guided and encouraged it can go forward to a far reaching and exciting renaissance. For today there are many grounds for hope, there is a tradition on which to build, but it would be unrealistic to suppose that the path will be easy. For the art and craft of the people have several hindrances on its progress.

The motive for much of the old art is disappearing. Even where the art still flourishes, the mere impact of ‘civilization’ has a deteriorating effect. Wherever the culture of native people have been disturbed by external influence, in nearly every case the quality of their craft has began to fall off even though they are provided with much more efficient tools than before.

What can be done to minimize such dangers? The first most elementary need is to ensure a plentiful supply of raw materials of the right kind. Next step is the psychological one, whereby a sense of pride and admiration should be instilled among the people about their own traditions and heritage. Much will depend on how far it proves possible to retain and develop the old designs and idioms of their decorative value, even though the former ritual associations may disappear. If, however this is to be fruitful of genuine progress in art, a great responsibility lies on the purchasers; it is essential that they should also be educated in some form about the cultural significance of the craft that eventually they should refuse to buy inferior articles and those which show a falling off from the high standards of tradition. The visitor or the official often needs education in aesthetics more than the craftsmen, whose own taste is usually sound and true. This can be brought through only with sufficient exposure of the consumers to the culture behind the craft.

To what degree should we “interfere” in the course of primitive art? How far should we try to teach and instruct, and above all whether we should create among people where art is the possession of the whole community, a class of artists and caste or guilds of craftsmen. This is a matter which has excited considerable controversy. The problem is not made easier by the varied results that have been achieved in different places. As soon as a traditional craftsmen is made art conscious by the modern notions of art as something specialized apart from ordinary life, his power of expression declines.

There is often talk of ‘improving’ traditional patterns. Instead it would be better to let them grow, naturally ad inevitably as they have done in past. We need for these craftsmen of Jharkand, men and women of true caliber, who would first survey the whole field, studying technique and design, and with caution humility and patience help the craftsmen to select the finest models of their own tradition for preservation and develop new techniques and styles out of their past heritage. Not of course to freeze the cultural and artistic level as it is at present, but to develop and also if need be changed, but always along the line of people’s own genius and tradition. Moreover in the process of modernization, traditional functions should be transformed rather than to let it get lost, whereas traditional structures if anything, should be rather be strengthened by the process of modernization.

The all round development of Jharkhand culture would have gone at much faster pace and the incorporation of new elements would have been inconvertible, had there been a nativity revival, both from within and induced from outside. With education and exposure comes an awareness of the ways of the world, and a new perspective to look at the old. The craftsmen of Jharkhand after initially blindly following ideas of modernism have now begun to see their own culture in a new light. Old traditions, customs and institutions are being re-established in re-interpreted forms which are much more suitable to sustainable change. The culture is thus, in a flux and changing rapidly. At the same time efforts are being made to keep the changes channeled along the native people’s intrinsic genius and traditions. This is very important since although people rapidly adopt or adjust to material changes, it is the psychological adjustment and balancing that counts. The native people’s inherent psychological orientation and their lifestyle are in a natural state of balance and harmony. Any attempt at making drastic changes in either of the two causes unpredictable stress and ultimately disrupts the harmony and development.

In conclusion, it would be altogether wrong to see the Jharkhand’s craftsmen as passive victims of a process of de culturation. There never was a pristine or unchanging Jharkhand society, rather we may discern the way in which their ethnicity is being actively and consciously remolded in the present era. What emerges is a vigorous sense of history and identity at the level of individual, state and nation.