Mala Sinha
THE BODHI ARCHIVE OF 19TH-20TH CENTURY TEXTILE BLOCKS
Bodhi’s archival collection of over 7000 hand-carved wood printing blocks were used from the late 19th century through the 20th century in Bombay in a family-owned block-printing enterprise which acquired some part of the collection around 1940 / 1945 and probably added fresh blocks as the business demanded. The enterprise closed down in 1985 and the blocks arrived in Baroda to form what is now a treasure trove for research.
The blocks are extremely eclectic, not subscribing to any ethnic, regional, caste or tribal design identity as is usual of textiles in the subcontinent. The designs are intriguingly diverse – from a wooden charkha that may have been used to print material for political campaigns such as banners, flags etc., nationalistic symbols such as the Ashokan lions, modernist abstractions to Bollywood-inspired bride and groom in an embrace. Some patterns and designs have references to traditional motifs of the past; others are free borrowings from various Euro-American sources that may have been key influencers of fashion, trends and lifestyles in their times. The collection points to a new urban India emerging in Bombay which was truly a melting pot of cultures and classes.
Three different directions of exploration have been attempted over the past year:
Art historical approach
This exploration was a visual search for stylistic influences and lineages in the motifs on the blocks. The scholar evolved a schema for categorisation of the blocks into ten typologies— floral, paisley, geometric, combinations of floral and geometric, figurative, tribal, stylised/abstract, contemporary, nationalist, borders—to trace the ways the motifs borrowed from a range of visual traditions (Mughal motifs, Madhubani painting), traditional textiles techniques (such as Bandhani, Ikat, Jamdani and Kasuti, Persian textiles and Central Asian rugs), craft traditions (Lippan) while also responding to visual influences from outside the subcontinent (African textiles and Turkish ceramics) contemporary politics (anti-colonial movement) and popular culture (Bollywood films) and influences from contemporary art (Cubism, Expressionism) brought through the art practices of the JJ School of Art in Bombay.
The study also tries to make some connections to existing scholarship in visual cultures of Bombay by scholars such as Jyotindra Jain. Thus, this preliminary exploration lays the foundation for further work in joining the ongoing scholarship in visual culture which focusses largely on the print medium and enlarging the canvas to include textile vocabularies.
Recording oral histories
Another under-explored area is understanding blocks through their use and circulation. Much of the research so far is in the realm of speculation about where and how the prints were visualised, for what use (clothing, furnishing, bills, banners, packaging), , who used them and the production and trade networks that sustained them.
The search for ‘stylistic’ inheritances through the art historical approach needs to be supplemented and complemented with accounts of who used the materials printed with the blocks (fabric, paper or other materials) and how they circulated. An important and neglected source of this information is block makers, printers, owners of printing units, traders and eventual users. The initiators of the archive have begun to record oral histories in Bombay and in other urban areas to investigate the material culture of which the blocks were the central artefacts. These oral narratives are an important way to gain insights into the social and economic networks underpinning the blocks and the ways in which these led to a material culture of urban centres. Undoubtedly, they will point to urban-rural linkages, patterns of elite patronage, connections to urban labour formations, migration of craftsmen and urban development and spatial formations which accommodated production and trade and consumption patterns indicating the dynamics of aesthetics and consumption practices and lifestyles.
Practice as research
Tilted Imagining New Worlds from the Old: Responding to an Archive of 19th-20th century textile blocks
An Open Elective at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad opened up a selection from Bodhi’s archival collection to design students form a variety of specialisations. Participants had the opportunity to see 42 original blocks and had access to digital images and prints of a further 175 blocks in diverse designs. The collection offered a stimulating variety to inspire young aspiring designers to create new surfaces, interfaces and products. In the process, it was hoped that unexpected new meanings would be created from these images, speaking to the present from multiple vantage points.
Urban Studies/Bombay Studies
Bombay is a port city and has been a centre of trade and commerce since its rise as a financial capital of the subcontinent in the 19th century. Textiles have played a key role in its growth and the archive of textile blocks could fill a lacuna in our understanding of the social and material histories of urban dynamics. The connections between subcontinental migration and urban agglomeration (the rise of industrial areas, slum/chawl housing) mediated by craft and craftsmen is an emerging area of research as work in an area largely focused on industrial production in the city’s mills and the effects of the disintegration of the mill economy in the 1990s.
Gender, Materiality and Consumption
The archive could become a rich starting point to explore the connection between gender and urban materiality (the overwhelming male world of textile production and the largely female consumers). The issue of coupons to shareholders in the mills allowed them to buy fabrics at discounted prices, prompting another route for the circulation of ‘modern’ textiles. How the preferences of consumers in terms of colours and motifs and the need for novelty was communicated back to the producer is a network yet to be deciphered.
Popular Culture Studies and Textiles
The inter-relationship between material and popular culture has largely been focused on the print medium and the archives could enlarge this discourse by prompting us to think about textiles and their role in the emergence of an urban aesthetic, seemingly unfettered by traditional moorings which were hitherto seen as non-negotiable. These ‘new’ prints then circulated to the surrounding hinterland, challenging the colour and motif palette held in place by tradition. The archive could very productively join this debate by posing fresh questions through its eclectic collection. This eclecticism also brings popular cinema culture into textiles, another area of scholarship awaiting our attention. This needs to be further supplemented through a study of textile advertising, reminding ourselves that Bombay was also the centre for the advertising industry in India.
A multi-pronged approach through recording oral histories, mapping block-printing units in other urban centres, explorations of archives such as the those of advertising agencies, newspapers and journals and making deeper connections with contemporary print cultures, politics and with cosmopolitanism in general would eventually lead to a richer debate on the overarching question of what tradition is and the many modes of being modern.