“… AM I ONCE AGAIN REINFORCING COLONIAL PERSPECTIVES?”
I had a lot of conflicting feelings for this action. Pictured below is my earlier attempt at understanding my great grandparent’s journey from present day Bangladesh to present day India during the Partition era. To read more on it, go back two posts earlier.
To summarize my feelings about that action, I was really bothered by the fact that generation by generation, my great grandparent’s stories were fading away as there no records of them except by memory. I was attempting to tell their story through Kantha, a method of embroidery that uses recycled fabrics. What struck me about Kantha was that the stitching could be handed down through generations, with grandmother,mother and daughter working on the same Kantha which I felt was appropriate for such a generational journey of memories of my great grandparents. Though I attempted it, I couldn’t help feel that I was erasing their story by stitching the very border they escaped from.
At the beginning of this reflection, I mentioned conflicting feelings. This is the story of my grandparents’ journey and many others but do I have any right to tell these stories? This knowledge was not imparted to me, I only know because I asked. Maybe I shouldn’t be telling these stories at all but the people who were close to them; people like my aunts and my parents. Most of the people from the Partition generation aren’t alive but the knowledge of their stories has been passed down through generations as memory.
I decided to take a step back and let others tell this story but I provide tools. Kantha is the medium of storytelling that I believe was appropriate for these generational stories but how can Kantha be used by everyone to tell their ancestor’s stories? I decided to embroider a typeface in Kantha’s running stitch style. Pictured below is the base typeface that I created. I made the typeface so it would be easy to apply a running stitch. Angular. No curves.
To be honest, I am not completely satisfied with the typeface but I promised myself I won’t be so perfectionist about it as this is more about the making and less about results. This is where I had another bout of conflicting feelings. The written word is a colonial perspective. Kantha is a purely graphical form; based on patterns and images. By making a typeface out of Kantha, am I once again reinforcing colonial perspectives?
I think, at this point, I was trying to renconcile this fact. Huge internal debate ensued. Though the written word is a colonial perpsective of records, written literature makes up a big part of Bengali culture as a result of the Bengal Renaissance (19th century to early 20th century). I don’t think this debate was ever resolved so I just decided to go ahead with making the typeface.
I still have to embroider and name the typeface. That will probably continue on to action 10. I was also considering making the font in Bengali but decided against it for now as my brain would melt from the sheer amount of work I would have to do. All in all, despite all the conflicting feelings this action, it was fun making a typeface. I was back in my element with making through the screen which was something I avoided in my earlier actions. I am also interested to see how the digital typeface would translate into the embroidered typeface. This would also be a first for me; mixing craft with design. Let’s see how this goes. Till the next action.
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“… LABOUR INTENSIVE BUT… SATISFYING.“
When reflecting on all my earlier actions, I realize I use paper as a medium most of the times. A4 white printer paper. They come in bulk stacks of a few hundred pages. My use of these papers are mostly single use. I might look back on it for reference but otherwise they sit there on my desk, piling up. The pulp and paper industry contributes to a fairly major part of global warming pollution, water pollution and deforestation. One of my investigations in my actions is how can ecology inform my practice to create design that sustains. How could I explore sustainability if the medium I use to explore it is in itself unsustainable by design? How could I change this? I decided that I was going to make my own paper.
I took a walk through my neighbourhood, trying to decide what resource I could use to make my paper. I happend upon these palm trees pictured above. They are fairly common in Saudi Arabia but I don’t believe they are of a local variety. If my research is correct, this is either sabal palmetto (Southern U.S.A, Cuba) or windmill palm tree (China, Japan, Myanmar, India) or I could be completely wrong. This is just speculation. But these trees grow well despite the harsh climate. There were some dead palm leaves the gardener hacked off and were left on the ground so I picked it up and took it home. The stem is prickly and leaves are hard and extremely fibrous.
For my first paper making method, I decided to weave the leaves. I didn’t have the materials to make a mold and deckle yet and I had a lot of leaves so I did what I could with what I had. Leaves weaved together isn’t the best of paper admittedly. The leaves I used were waxy so the color would run off the surface (ink would work better probably). I like how the weave has a grid pattern so it’s probably good to record information in a table format. Maybe. Since pigments don’t hold very well on the weave, I decided to make another weave but this time soak it in bleach solution so it would turn white and make it easier for pigments to hold. That’s not the most sustainable solution but it works. It takes quite a while for the bleach to turn the weave white. It might take a few days after this action. We’ll see how that goes later.
I got my mold (no deckle). Time to prep the leaves. I cut the leaves into small pieces, placed in large pot of water with baking soda and set it to simmer. This process is used to soften the leaves. The palm leaves I used were extremely hard and fibrous. I left it to soak and simmer for about 2 days before I turned it into pulp. Paper making is messy. I scooped the pulp into the mold and flattened and evened it out using a spatula. It’s a different method from all the YouTube tutorials I watched but I didn’t have a bucket/ tub big enough to fit my mold so I improvised. Once I had the pulp evened out in the mold, I transferred the molded pulp onto cloth and let it dry with some weight pressed on to it to keep the paper from curling.
All in all, this worked out pretty well. The paper is thick, pliable and I could write on it. The back turned out a lighter brown from the front. I trimmed the edges since they were quite sharp after drying. Later I will trim it to an A4 size and see if the printer would except this paper. I want to know if printing is even feasible with handmade paper so I could make prints more sustainably. I hope the printer doesn’t get jammed. Fingers crossed.
I enjoyed the papermaking process immensely. It was pretty labour intensive but overall satisfying. If the printer experiment works, I am excited to create more custom paper for myself.
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“… IT TOTALLY FAILED.”
I will investigate border histories and ecology through making and experimenting with my environment.
In my earlier action, I was contemplating how the environment around me collaborate in my making? Saudi Arabia. Miles upon miles of sand, stone and sun. It got me to thinking what is the most readily available resource where I now live? Sun. Heat.
In a place where temperatures can soar upto 55 degrees celsius, heat has always been a deterrent for many activities in my daily life. I rarely step out during hot days and eagerly wait for winter months for more pleasant weather. I want to challenge that my way of thinking about the sun. Instead of disregarding it, I wanted to embrace it so I decided to experiment with the sun’s heat for my making.
For my first attempt in using sun’s heat in my making, I decided to make some sun prints using construction black paper (pictured above). The idea was that when I place objects on the construction paper and leave it out on direct sunlight for a few hours, a “tanline” of the object should be left on the paper. So I just placed whatever I had around the house. Flowers and leaves. Pinecones. Rice. I left it out in the morning and waited until the sun set to check on it and it totally failed. No “tanline” was left behind on the paper. So it was back to square one. How do I use the sun’s heat in my making?
For my second attempt at experiment with the sun’s heat, I realized I may have to think a bit more about this. I realized I was using the sun’s heat as a tool but maybe it should be a collaborator. I should give the sun some tools and let the sun make what it wants. So I decided to offer the sun some paint and paper. I mixed the paint in some water and froze it. Then I placed the ice cubes on the paper which was placed outside and let the sun do its thing and below are the results of the sun’s makings. The results (pictured below) were pretty interesting. There was also a surprise collaboration by the wind that resulted in some of the paper flying off and paint dripping. Shoutout to wind ~
My other line of investigation is into border histories. I started from my personal history with borders by looking at my passports, old and new. Every page. Every stamp. Every visa. A record of my border history. Which borders I had permission to cross? What type of permission do I have to enter these borders? For how long could I stay within those borders? From which country these permissions were issued? The design of each visa and stamp is also reflective of each country. Pictured below are my indian passport, a 2007 Canada visa and a 2005 U.S.A. visa.
On the cover of the Indian passport is the Ashoka pillar, an icon from Buddhist and Hindu faith, which symbolizes the axis mundi (the axis on which the world spins). Lots of maple leaves in the Canadian Visa and a person on a horse holding a flag?? I tried finding out what the person on a horse signifies but couldn’t find anything. Red and Blue patterns and the White House (built by enslaved African Americans) with Abraham Lincoln (16th U.S. president, abolished slavery) in the background of the sticker.
After looking through my passports, I decided to explore the broader contexts of border histories; from the personal to the ancestral. I decided to talk to my parents about it. Turns out, my grandfathers had history of travel since they both worked for the Indian military. My grandfather from my mother’s side was a mechanical engineer for the air force. He travelled to many of the places that I have been to. A few years ago, he showed me a picture of him in Bahrain when it was just a desert vs the pictures of Bahrain that I showed him which were mostly skyscapers. My grandfather from my father’s side worked for the Indian army and he travelled a lot within India till he finally settled in Kolkata to work in a steel plant. He died before I could meet him.
When I went even further back into ancestral border histories, I reached stories of Partition, when the subcontinent was divided into India and Pakistan in 1947. The partition involved the division of two provinces, Bengal and Punjab based on religion. Hindus and Muslims. The idea was for Hindus to go to the Indian side of the border and Muslims to the Pakistan side. These border of religious divide were designed by a British man by the name of Sir Cyril Radcliffe. He made that border in 5 weeks. Partition was a violent era that led to the displacement of 10-12 million people and with several hundred thousands to 2 million lives assumed to be lost. Partition affects people to this day with tense relations between India and Pakistan.
My great grandparents and their children (my grandparents) were a few of the 10-12 millions that were forced to move from their original lands in Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) to India due to tensions between Hindus and Muslims. Unlike me, they have no records of their border histories; in fact, they have no records at all. No birth certificates. No photographs. No I.D. There was no concepts of documents back then. What’s left of them is the memories and stories of them told by the future generations. But as I talked to my parents about my great grand parents, they couldn’t tell me much. They have very faded memories of my great grandparents. I couldn’t help but feel that the story of my great grandparents, grandparents and the millions of others that they were displaced with were fading away generation after generation.
As an attempt to record this history, I decided to embroider the India/ Bangladesh border (where my great grandparents fled from) using my dad’s old handkerchief in the Kantha style. Kantha is a form of embroidery that is practiced by the rural women of Bengal from both India and Bangladesh. Kantha refers both to the style of the running stitch and the finished cloth. Kantha means rags. The women recycled the well used cloth that turned to rags and give it new life through the stitch. Fabrics were layered together and the stitch would cover the entire cloth to provide strength. The stitching could be handed down through generations, with grandmother,mother and daughter working on the same Kantha.
Kanthas are repositories of memories of particular makers, givers, recipients, and owner.
Wandering Silk
As I was try to record and preserve the stories of my great grandparents during Partition, I thought Kantha a fitting medium. It’s a medium that lends itself to expression and story telling. But what was the story that I was telling when I stitched the Bangladesh border through Kantha? Am I taking away my great grandparent’s stories by once again creating those borders? Am I doing any justice to this medium of expression and storytelling? Am I doing any justice to my ancestor’s stories? Am I universalizing this history by stitching these borders? Am I reinforcing those borders that caused so many people pain? Am I even telling a story? I was left feeling dissatisfied with my making this week.
After my one on one with Louise, I decided to rethink my approach to to ancestral border histories. I needed to learn about my great grandparents more. As I mentioned earlier, my parents had very faded memories of them but my aunts lived with my great grandparents for many years and my parents advised me that they would definitely know more. If they are willing, perhaps, I would love to discuss with them ancestral histories and have them involved in the process of making. I don’t know how to achieve that since they live in India and I live all the way in Saudi Arabia but we’ll see about that later. Till next week!
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“…SEEING WITHOUT NOTICING.“
I will investigate my ancestry, culture, borders and its politics and ecology through exploring my new environment and involving my parents with my investigation and making.
Though I wrote all this, I ended up only doing a part of it. There was no making this week, just investigation and reflection. I also wasn’t able to investigate the ecology part as I was in quarantine that week. I finally made it to my parent’s place in Saudi Arabia. It was a strange reunion. Couldn’t hug them. Greeting each other from a distance. Living in the same house but having minimal interaction. It was a relief when I finally got my negative COVID-19 results and I was able to properly greet them ( hugs and happiness all around).
While I was quarantining in my old room, I decided to rummage through all the drawers and cabinets. I found a few old memories. Puppets. Textbooks. Books. Makeup. Jewellery. Board games. Cards. My sister’s guitar that she never learnt how to play. Old art supplies. My sister’s diary haha. Along with the old, there were a lot of new things as well since my parents decided to turn it into a storage room. The printer with no ink. Boxes on boxes on boxes. Carpets. Prayer items. I decided to photograph things that I had not noticed when I was living here but have now caught my interest.
One of first things that caught my eye were some prayer items, specifically the packaging of the prayer items. Pictured below is Haldi (yellow: turmeric powder) and Kumkum (red: turmeric powder + slaked lime). Haldi and Kumkum are used for social and religious Hindu markings in India.
I am amazed by the amount of detail and information the packaging contains considering it’s the size of a coin. Top. Side. Bottom. Illustration. Typography in English, Hindi, Kannada. Symbols. Colour. It’s an item I saw almost daily but failed notice. I was seeing without noticing. Perhaps I should be more aware of the experiences I take for granted and it might lead me to little gems like these. Was it due to a certain subconcious bias against locally designed items that I failed to notice such things? Am I noticing it now because I am trying to unlearn such biases? Is the way I am viewing such items coming from a “tourist” perspective?
Another line of questioning I had was about borders and ancestry and how they are intrinsically tied in my case. Though I have to talk to my parents to be able to investigate this so this would have to continue to the next action. I also wanted to continue investigating notions of nature and ecology after my limited idea of nature hindered me to understanding and making with it. This would also have to continue into my next action as I am in quarantine. I used this quarantine to think about what is nature where I live? Saudi Arabia. Desert for miles upon miles. Shrubs. Palm trees. Date trees. Sun. Heat. No clouds. Sand. Rocks. How do I integrate nature in my practice? How do I integrate it in a way that doesn’t exploit the abundant resources they have provided us? Could nature be a collaborator in my making?
I would like to conclude with something that is not that I made from my actions but is related to it. Recently, I was commissioned to create a logo for sustainable handicraft shop that would be based in Kolkata and Gurgaon, India. Et Al.
I was only commissioned to create an English logo but I also went ahead and created Hindi logo. A first for me. I include this because this is the first time I conciously decided to change my practice according to my ideals. To have vernacular languages on equal footing with English. I am not getting paid for the Hindi logo but this was a necessary step. I still want to create the Bengali logo but I will do that once this is approved. Creating vernacular equivalent logos is hard since there is little information on creating vernacular type from scratch and its forms are vastly different from English so the same rules don’t apply but I am willing to use intuition and learn along the way. Currently, I am excited for the trajectory in which my practice is changing and I look forward to what I create in the future.
