The Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum is delighted to present the exhibition, ‘Weaving Flowers, Wandering Stains, and Floating Silks’ by artist Archana Hande, an alumnus of Shantiniketan and MSU Baroda. Her work explores the colonial manipulation of identity and culture through labour policies and practices. She presents complex textile histories that have been the foundation of cities like Bombay (now Mumbai), Bangalore (now Bengaluru), Mangalore, Madras (now Chennai), Calcutta (now Kolkata), Kochi and others, to comment on civilizational changes and aspirations; the nuances that produce power relationships; the profound labour of the artisan/craftsman that remains unacknowledged; the loss of legacy through migration and loss of habitat and livelihood; and the intimate experience of desire and memory that are secrets woven into textiles. She has spent time deeply researching Mumbai’s textile industries and labour movements, and her work draws on this to build powerful visual narratives.

Hande employs the medium of textile production – jacquard punching sheets, block prints that she incises herself, as both an epistemological tool and a formal homage to the craftspeople and labourers who remain invisible and unacknowledged, recalling the craftspeople who made the objects in the Museum. Like the early anthropologists and archivists she has collected their stories through which she frames her own narratives.

The canvas is the city where migrants including textile workers who have been displaced by industrialisation come in search of jobs. Their aspirations and desires are woven into the fabrics that adorn the world. Hande’s work further explores notions of beauty, and movements, and her work draws on this to build powerful visual narratives.

The transformation of the textile industry from a legacy based village industry to mass produced cloth made in mills, became the basis on which the wealth and growth of many cities across India and the world were built. Ironically it mirrors the technological transformation taking place today. Though the work narrates the past it also enquires into the future providing a visual template for us to reflect on our responses to our environment and our aspirations.

The exhibition is supported by Chemould Prescott Road. Additional support provided by the Max Muller Bhavan, Mumbai.