Merging Mahatma Gandhi’s khadi cloth and Raja Ravi Varma’s iconic paintings sounds impossibly radical. But that’s what two textile revivalists, Gaurang Shah and Lavina Baldota, set out to achieve. It took them all of six years to weave intricate paintings into cloth, using the jamdani technique, and create a collection of remarkable sarees.
Eighteen such sarees were recently displayed in Kolkata at an exhibition titled ‘Khadi, a Canvas’. Curated by Baldota and Shah, the exhibition was presented by TRI Art & Culture, a nonprofit, along with the Abheraj Baldota Foundation.