Across India, a growing number of designers are forging sustained creative partnerships with indigenous artists. The exhibition No ‘One’ Maker: Textiles as Community highlighted this shift, showing projects in which designers and artisans worked as equal collaborators. The show underscored a broader movement in contemporary design—one that recognises indigenous artists as co-authors of the creative process, not merely contributors to its execution. For example, Balu Jivya Mashe’s Warli paintings are accentuated with designer Rimzim Dadu’s metallic embroidery, thereby creating a dialogue between two distinct artistic styles. Elsewhere, Bhuri Bai’s Bhil paintings take on a new form through her collaboration with luxury textile brand Harago, where her familiar dotted motifs are transformed into large-scale sculptural installations using the Bandhej technique.
Patchwork quilts, especially, draw the eye. Made by women from the Siddi community of Karnataka, each piece carries strong colour contrasts and distinct compositions. Names are stitched into the fabric, making each quilt identifiable to its maker. These works come from a long collaboration with designer Anitha N Reddy, who speaks about changing the usual structure. “It was not about helping them, but growing alongside them while making their existing voice be heard as it is,” she says.
The collaboration between designer duo Abraham & Thakore and artist Mangala Bai Marawi reworks the godna tattoo tradition. Instead of skin, motifs are painted onto double-ikat fabric that hangs vertically, suggesting the human form without outlining it. “I have been trying to adapt my art to different mediums and this collaboration made me see my practice on cloth for the first time,” says Marawi. At textile label Morii, the focus shifts to detail. Working with Mansukh Pitambari Khatri, familiar block printing elements are enlarged and separated. Founder Brinda Dudhat explains, “We wanted to add a sense of movement to the repetition-based craft with minimal intervention.”
The curatorial lens resists the idea that Indian textiles need to be made contemporary—they already are. This found resonance when Manu Parekh and Madhavi Parekh, alongside The Chanakya School of Craft, created large textile works rooted in folk traditions for the Dior Paris Haute Couture Week 2022. “Local artists are not meant to sit on the floor in exhibitions and demonstrate their skill. We need to address them as equals instead of nameless artists from a community,” says Sreyansi Singh, curator of the exhibition. Together, the works show how textiles can carry both process and presence—where collaboration builds something that neither side could create alone.