An heirloom silk sari worn by women of the Vohra community. A tie-dyed reed mat created by weavers from Bengal. An ikat yarn ‘book’ with new designs on each page. A large bedcover woven on a customised loom. These handwoven works with diverse functions are all on view at Patta-Bandha: The Art of Indian Ikat, at the Crafts Museum, Delhi, presented by the National Crafts Museum & Hastkala Academy, in collaboration with Devi Art Foundation. Curated by textile designer and curator Mayank Mansingh Kaul, the exhibition offers a wide survey of Indian ikat weaving practices. It showcases works by weavers and designers, allowing viewers to juxtapose the historical and contemporary evolution of Indian ikat. Patta-Bandha, opened on January 23, follows two previous exhibitions, Fine Counts: Indian Cotton Textiles and Vayan: The Art of Indian Brocades, in a series on prominent woven traditions in India.

The term ikat has Malay-Indonesian origins and is used to describe discrete weaving traditions across Asia. Artist Sumakshi Singh’s installation with the image of a spiral staircase, commissioned by the Devi Art Foundation for the exhibition, offers a clear sense of ikat's geometric complexity, where the yarn is resist-dyed in intricate arrangements, unlike other techniques where dye is applied to the woven fabric. “The kind of mathematical precision that is required is quite extraordinary because it has to eventually make sense on the loom,” says Kaul of ikat's complexity, in an interview with STIR. To form clear patterns, the yarn must be dyed and aligned on the loom with exactitude. In traditional weaving practices, the process of calculating this alignment is reflected in the design.

Kaul notes past research on arrowhead motifs in the end panels of patola textiles, which suggest that they were design elements used to plot and measure the patterns. A late 20th-century mulberry silk sari designed by Rakesh Thakore and created by expert weaver Chotalal Salvi in Patan, Gujarat, highlights the functional ubiquity of the arrowhead pattern. In Thakore’s design, arrowheads become a central motif, recurring in an intricate linear pattern along the borders of the sari. Besides the arrowheads, other motifs and patterns seen in patola weaving bear ritual and cultural significance and are often specific to religious communities. The Vohra Gaji Bhat, with a design of leaves, stars and twelve-petalled rosettes across its field, was used by women of the Vohra Muslim trading community on special occasions. Meanwhile, pan-bhat or heart-shaped leaf motifs appear in odhanis (scarves) and saris used by women from wealthy Hindu and Jain communities in parts of Gujarat. Saris were often passed down as heirlooms, lending themselves to intergenerational acts of care and repurposing. The exhibition also features a restored 20th-century patchwork quilt, its worn pan-bhat patolu (a single patola sari) base carefully patched with rectangular swatches of blue, white and yellow mill fabric.

The exhibition design by scenographer Reha Sodhi guides visitors deeper into the space through a selection of traditional works, including sections on ikat in Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and Odisha, with contemporary designs coming into view on the way out. Kaul highlights the use of ikat in home products like bedspreads, table covers and napkins, which necessitated the creation of a new weaving infrastructure. “From the 1970s, the rethinking of these traditions also meant getting into the home furnishing space. This is not only at the level of motifs or aesthetics or playing around with scale, but also (in terms of) setting up a new loom because you didn’t have looms this size for ikat,” he says.

Ikat textiles from Odisha stand out for their curvilinear motifs and calligraphic text on a range of fabrics catering to different social classes – coarse and fine cotton, mulberry silk, and tussar. Besides saris, the textiles are also woven into ceremonial shawls and panels with devotional text, as ritual offerings to the idol of Lord Jagannath, an incarnation of Vishnu, in the Puri temple. However, the most ingenious example of Odishan ikat on display is a panel created by Sudam Guin of Nuapatna in Cuttack, with highlights of the central government’s 20-Point Programme, first introduced in 1975. ‘Review of Laws on Minimum Agricultural Wages,’ Point 6, woven in single ikat, pronounces in title case. The state’s wide range of socio-economic preoccupations – agriculture, trade, education, craft, even tax evasion–are framed by a traditional border of fish motifs seen in ikat from eastern Odisha.

There are gaps in research on the link between Indian and pan-Asian ikat traditions, though patterns like the mashru, a striped single ikat pattern produced in weaving centres across southern, western and northern India, can be traced back to 7th - 9th century fragments from archaeological excavations in Israel. Familiar motifs like birds, animals, flowers and leaves keep recurring across regional ikat traditions. “Most of them belong to a stockpile of images that you find in Indian architecture over a thousand years,” Kaul remarks, accruing meaning through a process of repetition. With its regional and functional groupings, Patta-Bandha hints at how trade and commerce have enabled aesthetic exchange over the centuries. The works in Patta-Bandha, from the deconstructed ikat panels at the entrance to the arduously patterned compound ikat shawls of Odisha, remind us that Indian ikat is a confluence of the aesthetic and the functional.

Patta-Bandha: The Art of Indian Ikat, opened on January 23 is on view at the National Crafts Museum until March 10, 2024.

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position of STIR or its Editors.)