THE KHADI MARCH: JUST FIVE METERS (2016)
BY SHELLY JYOTI
OVERVIEW: These works are in continuation of Shelly Jyoti’s previous works ‘Indigo Narratives’ (2009-14) and ‘Salt: The Great March’ (2013-15)
The Khadi March: Just five meters is a call to action that challenges people who live in urban cities to grant dignity to the rural brethren and to rethink our engagement with the spinners, weavers and people who work with handicrafts in the villages. The featured works have two aims, one to touch upon the idea of swadharma towards nation and secondly explore a solution to uplift the rural population. The first is an ideology stemming from Vedas (Ancient Indian texts composed in Sanskrit) second is setting the context of finding a solution to bridge and connect rural (70%). The gist of the thought can be put in a simple way of buying five yards of khadi by thirty crore urban population to empower spinners, weaver and unremunerated village citizens and bring them livelihood. This form of swadharma would be an effortless exchange of sacrifice and gain woven through the notion of patriotism, purity and sacrifice. These work comprises of several khadi site-specific installations, twenty Ajrakh textile artworks, multi media spoken word poetry and a short documentary film on mapping ajrakh textile traditions in contemporary art and craft
Catalog essays by Lisa Trivedi and Guruji Narayana
Lisa Trivedi is a Cultural and social historian, author of ‘Clothing Gandhi’s Nation: Homespun and Modern India’, A Professor of History at Hamilton College, New york, USA
Gurujee Narayana is a management guru. An exponent on Bhagwat Gita, Upanishads and Vedic literature. He is a mentor to many chief executives and is a yogic volunteer, serving rural and urban India.
This exhibition is in part supported by Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts, New Delhi; National Gallery of Modern Art, Bangalore; Khadi & Village Industries Commission, YES Institute of culture, New Delhi