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Crafting a Future (Stories of Indian Textiles and Sustainable Practices)

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Crafting a Future (Stories of Indian Textiles and Sustainable Practices)

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Specifications

	Publisher: Niyogi Books
	Author Archana Shah
	Language: English
	Pages: 275 (Color Illustrations)
	Cover: PAPERBACK
	9x7 inch
	Weight 820 gm
	Edition: 2023
	ISBN: 9789391125226
	HBW089

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	Usually ships in 3 days
	Returns and Exchanges accepted within 7 days
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Easy Returns

Return within 7 days of
order delivery.See T&Cs

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Serving more than a
million customers worldwide.

25+ Years in Business

A trustworthy name in Indian
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Book Description

About the Book Crafting a Future is a heartfelt celebration of artisans and their vocational skills. Each region in India has its own distinctive raw materials, craft techniques, textiles, motifs and colour palettes, and through her well-researched narrative enriched with numerous stories, Archana Shah demonstrates the diversity and true value of handcrafted textile processes. She believes that handspun, handwoven fabrics made using indigenous fibres and natural materials for dyeing will help create a unique identity for handcrafted textiles, and suggests ways to repurpose the abundant artisanal talent available across the country to rejuvenate this sector. These tenets are woven throughout the book, which is broadly divided into three sections based on natural fibres: cotton from plants, silk from insects and wool from animals. This resonates with Gandhiji's concept of developing khadi and village industries to rejuvenate the rural economy, and stimulate development through a bottom-up approach. Beyond its beauty and heritage value, artisanal production is eco-friendly, has a negligible carbon footprint and fulfils most of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It has the potential for creating dignified employment opportunities for millions of people in their own regional location, so that they are not compelled by economic constraints to abandon their ancestral professions and migrate to urban slums to earn a meagre livelihood as unskilled labourers. In essence, the book focuses on artisans, their aspirations and fulfilment in their work. It also draws upon their traditional wisdom to address two of the most serious challenges that we face today: growing unemployment and climate change.

About the Author Archana Shah has been collaborating with artisans around the country for the last 40 years to create textiles for urban markets. As a design student, she developed a keen interest in the traditional craft skills of indigenous artisans. This encouraged her to travel to remote corners of the country to study, understand and experience the vast variety of weaving, dyeing, printing, embroidery and ornamentation techniques practised by different communities. This proved to be a very enriching journey, and the unique skills of the people of various regions, their distinctive colour palettes and rich design vocabulary became the base for all her future work. This experience motivated her to start a clothing company. BANDHEJ, in 1985, a label that focuses on traditional textile skills, and offers a range of eco-friendly, handcrafted clothing for Indian women with an eastern sensibility. The company was started with the vision of upholding, preserving and promoting the precious skills and inherent knowledge of indigenous artisans through collaborative design interventions. Over the years, through many initiatives and interactions, she has been able to revive and rejuvenate several craft skills, thereby encouraging young artisans to realise that they can earn a decent livelihood by pursuing their traditional vocation. In 2013, Archana published her first book, SHIFTING SANDS, Kutch: A Land in Transition. It recounts her personal journey of discovery, which is interwoven with her association of over four decades with the land of Kutch, its people and their crafts. She continues to believe that there is a lot to learn from traditional wisdom.

Foreword Handlooms are the warp and weft of the Indian subcontinent-our culture, aesthetics and economy are rooted in its threads. Handloom weavers form the major part of our handicraft vector which, in turn, is the second largest sector of our economy Kabir, the 15th-century mystic weaver poet, said God the Almighty is also a weaver. The spinning of yarn and weaving of handloom cloth is a metaphor used over the ages for creation, and for the interplay of genders, cultures, communities and skills that make up our universe. The message in these verses is that the mingling of multiplicity and diversity leads to unity and strength, and that when different strands come together, they create a fabric that is not only beautiful but resilient and durable. This is a vital metaphor for the world today in these increasingly divisive times Consequently, this is not just an extraordinary book, but one that is much needed india's present, and our future potential are interconnected to the skillsets and knowledge systems that are part of our past. Sadly, we often forget the most important strands. Archana Shah's textile journey is a voyage of discovery. Wandering from the Northeast to Kashmir and Uttarakhand, to UP and Bengal and Odisha, to Kutch and Karnataka and Andhra and Telengana; from pashmina rearers in Ladakh to revivalists of patola in Rajkot and Ponduru khadi; from the centuries-old family traditions of benaresi silks to the new developments in Malkha and Kala cotton, Archana covers the making traditions and techniques of handloom textiles today. The insights and information and vignettes of other lives and people are completely mind-blowing. The social and cultural history, the raw material, the processes, the products..... I don't think anything like this has ever been done before. Archana Shah has been immersed in textiles for over four decades now as an NID student, designer, merchandiser, mentor, researcher and traveller. Through a keenly observed, simply narrated account of her immersive journeys from 2018 to 2020 to weaving centres and handloom projects across the country, which include the landscape, the community, their ways, even food and clothing seen through her eyes, we are gradually led into the details of each weaving style, the raw materials, the complexities of looms and treadles, and the voices, views, perspectives and problems of the people involved. As one reads, one realises their richness, range and huge untapped potential.

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