Wednesday 23 September, 11-4 p.m.: Talks, Demonstration, and Pop Up, India Trunk with Ruth Clifford, Lokesh Ghai and Judy Frater

Museum of the Home, 136 Kingsland Rd, London E2 8EA, United Kingdom

India Trunk brings together an exceptional group of artisans, textile makers, designers and craft organisations for a day of talks, demonstrations and pop-up displays celebrating the extraordinary breadth of contemporary Indian textile practice. Spanning handloom weaving, block printing, embroidery, natural dyeing, painted cloth and experimental surface design, the event offers a rare opportunity to encounter diverse regional traditions and meet the people keeping them alive today.

Featured participants include Sufiyan Ismail Khatri, a tenth-generation Ajrakh block printer known for his richly layered natural dye textiles; Vankar Vishram Valji, whose work with kala cotton and traditional Kutch weaving has gained international recognition; and marbled suminagashi and itajime clamp-dyed textiles are presented by SIDR Craft.

The programme also includes Subrang Arts, a charity dedicated to promoting and preserving the artistic and cultural heritage of the Indian subcontinent through exhibitions, performances, workshops and educational programmes.

Visitors will also encounter thoughtful textile curation and artisan collaborations from  Satayam, and Coonoor & Co, whose work supports and recontextualises traditional Toda embroidery from the Nilgiris, alongside the celebrated embroidered textiles of SHE Kantha, whose work has helped revive and sustain kantha traditions while supporting generations of women artisans.

Part exhibition, part marketplace and part cultural exchange, India Trunk offers an immersive introduction to the living traditions, regional identities and contemporary innovations shaping Indian textile culture today. 

Liverpool John Moores University researcher and educator Ruth Clifford teaches on the university’s fashion programme and explores the relationship between fashion education, craft and cross-cultural collaboration.

Following doctoral research focused on design education for handloom weavers in India, her current work examines how partnerships between UK fashion students and artisan-designers in India can help foster more culturally sensitive, sustainable and decolonial approaches to fashion practice. Her research is rooted in supporting meaningful creative exchange while creating sustainable opportunities for artisanal textile communities.

Working alongside Ruth is Lokesh Ghai, an artist, educator and researcher whose practice centres on the preservation and advocacy of marginalised craft communities in India. Based between Ahmedabad and Manchester, his research investigates the relationship between caste, craft activism and heritage shoemaking traditions in the Himalayas, while championing the cultural knowledge embedded within handmade practices.

Judy Frater is Founder Director of Somaiya Kala Vidya, an institute of education for artisans. She has lived in Kutch, working with artisans, for 25 years. During this time she Co-founded and operated Kala Raksha Trust. She established the Kala Raksha Textile Museum, and founded Kala Raksha Vidhyalaya, the first design school for traditional artisans. For this concept, Frater was awarded an Ashoka Fellowship for social entrepreneurship in 2003. Under her eight-year tenure as Director, Kala Raksha Vidhyalaya received international recognition for its unique and successful approach to education of artisans. Frater received the Sir Misha Black Medal for Distinguished Services to Design Education in 2009, the Crafts Council of India Kamla award in 2010, and the George B. Walter’36 Service to Society Award from Lawrence University in 2014. In 2014 she joined Somaiya group to found Somaiya Kala Vidya, to take design for artisans from a program to an institute and reach its full potential. Frater is author of Threads of Identity: Embroidery and Adornment of the Nomadic Rabaris, awarded the Costume Society of America’s Milla Davenport award. Before residing in India, she was Associate Curator of Eastern Hemisphere Collections at the Textile Museum, in Washington, DC.

Event Cancellation Policy
All bookings are non-refundable. However, if you let us know that you are unable to attend an event you have booked at least two weeks before the event, we will open up your place. If we find another participant, you will be offered a credit note.