The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
A Stitch in Time
Textile artist and designer Priya Ravish Mehra pays an ode to skilled darners, better-known as the rafoogars, in her latest solo
OVER 12 YEARS ago when textile artist, weaver and designer Priya Ravish Mehra began research on a group of skilled darners, better-known as rafoogars who mend and repair damaged and torn pieces of cloth, she was also diagnosed with cancer. The onset of the disease led her to ponder over her life, which bore a strong resemblance to theirs. “I decided to use the whole metaphor of mending and darning for my works, where we don’t ignore the damages but accept and figure them out, and then heal ourselves,” says Mehra, whose findings have now resulted in 56 mixed media works made with the help of discarded cloth, fibres and paper pulp as part of the exhibition “Presence in Absence”, which is on display at Gallery Threshold.
“The damage that I talk of could exist in relationships between two people or countries. It can also be communication gap between generations. In my case, it has been my own ill health but I continued to live. I am trying to express my personal life journeythroughthesedarnersandhavetriedto draw parallels between their repairing of the cloth to the process of healing of the body. Much like how they repair a cloth, we heal our bodies. Throughout our life, we have to keep mending and restoring it to help it go further and give it strength,” says 56-year-old Mehra, who left her degree in mathematics to pursueherlovefortextileswith a degree in fine arts (textiles) from Visva Bharti University, Santiniketan. She has to her creditapostgraduatedegreein tapestry weaving from the Royal College of Arts in London andwestdeancollege,sussex.
This series is also a reminder of Mehra’s childhood, when during summer vacations she was highly intrigued by rafoogars, every time she visitedhergrandparent’shome in Najibabad, Uttar Pradesh, a place which is home to some of the best darners in the country.
Using a bird’s nest that she found on the ground after it fell off a tree post a storm, she has lent it a new form using paper pulp, which gives it the illusion of a cloth-like material. In another frame, she has mixed pieces of torn cotton rags and ramie pulp together to render a new lease of life to the discarded cloth. In Palm Bark with Daphne Pulp, a palm bark appears to blend into the pulp mixture. “I have used dead plant fibres such as twigs that have fallen off the trees, and the bark of a palm tree. When they are falling, they look like dead components and the minute I fuse them with pulp, they are transformed into something new,” says Mehra.
In an untitled piece, she has spread patches of dyed cloth from her earlier weavings, many of which she had abandoned. “After the diagnosis of the disease, I suddenly realised that I was also imperfect. If I am not leaving myself behind, so why should I leave behind things which were imperfect. I decided to bring back old works which were rejected by me and tried to restore them in a different way,” she says.
Mehra says that she wants people to acknowledge the rafoogars and know who they are. “Often, when we visit our nearby rafoogars to alter a piece of cloth, we say, ‘Bhaiya, kitne paise hue? But the respect for them is missing. So to consider them as a part of our art and craft and our living heritage is very important,” says Mehra, who has managed to take groups of rafoogars to Australia, Scotland and the US to get them international recognition with the help of workshops on textiles. This exhibition is another step in that direction. “I feel that because the work has to be invisible, the people have remained invisible. The moment a cloth is mended, the role of the darner is over. There is a role played by the darner who is like a magician in our lives, but disappears as soon as we get the perfect cloth. My exhibition is all about trying to acknowledge these people,” says Mehra. The exhibition is on at Gallery Threshold,
Sarvodaya Enclave, till April 30