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Threads of Visual Exploration: Textiles and Allied Practices - Part II

By Prof. Rajarshi Sengupta   |   IIT Kanpur
Learners enrolled: 315   |  Exam registration: 44
ABOUT THE COURSE:
This course puts forward an invested and interdisciplinary way of examining, analysing and appreciating Indian textiles drawing on the ongoing scholarly discussions around craft-art interface, visual and contextual analysis of art practices and sustainability. The course puts forward demonstrations of hands-on practices and interviews on sustainable textile practices which complements the in-depth discussions on the history of textiles and crafts in India. The insights gleaned from the discussions and demonstrations will be beneficial for art practitioners, designers, aspiring art historians, and those preparing for competitive examinations.
Studies in Indian textiles have underscored a range of pertinent topics, including textiles and trade networks (Barnes 1997, 2017; Crill 2006, 2008; Peck 2013), materials and techniques of textile making (Bean 1989; Cecil 2013; Cohen 2016), textiles and identity formation (Edwards 2011, 2016) and innovation and sustainability (Sethi 2016; Venkatesan 2010). Alongside, fresh perspectives into textile makers’ intelligence (Fee 2020; Sengupta 2021) and sensory perception of historical textiles and other artifacts (Houghteling 2022) situated Indian textiles in the intersection of art history,material culture, design history and practice-based studies. Drawing on these ongoing discussions, the course aims to broaden the scope to consider the concepts and tangible presence of textiles and allied practices and their deep impact on societies. Furthermore, the hands-on aspects of textile making and interviews contribute to a more comprehensive understanding and appreciation of textiles and allied practices of India.

INTENDED AUDIENCE: Students and professionals in Fine Arts, Design and Humanities

INDUSTRY SUPPORT: Students and professionals in the fields of Fine Arts, Contemporary Art, Design and Fashion will benefit from this course.
Summary
Course Status : Completed
Course Type : Core
Language for course content : English
Duration : 4 weeks
Category :
  • Humanities and Social Sciences
Credit Points : 1
Level : Undergraduate
Start Date : 19 Aug 2024
End Date : 13 Sep 2024
Enrollment Ends : 19 Aug 2024
Exam Registration Ends : 30 Aug 2024
Exam Date : 03 Nov 2024 IST

Note: This exam date is subject to change based on seat availability. You can check final exam date on your hall ticket.


Page Visits



Course layout

Week 1: Yarn and fabric dyeing
Introduction to the history of yarn and fabric dyeing
practical demonstration of dyeing
Week 2: Woodblock making and Printing
Social, cultural and historical significance of woodblock making, printing, especially in southern India
Demonstration of woodblock making by external master blockmaker and printing of woodblocks on fabric
Week 3: Dye and mordant painting
Introduction to the history of dye and mordant painting in southern and western India
Demonstration of dye and mordant painting following kalamkari techniques
Week 4:  Reflections on Sustainability
Interviews with dye specialist, woodblock carver and comments by faculty members at IITK on the sustainable textile and craft practices

Books and references

Ages of Sarasa. Fukuoka: Fukuoka Art Museum, Kyushu Asahi   
Broadcasting Co., Ltd., and The Asahi Shimbun, 2014.

Aitken, Molly Emma. The Intelligence of Tradition in Rajput Court
Painting. New Haven and London: Yale University Press,
2010.

Barnes, Ruth. Indian block-printed textiles in Egypt: The Newberry
collection in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Oxford:
Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

−−−, Steven Cohen, and Rosemary Crill. Trade, Temple, and Court:
Indian Textiles from the Tapi Collection. Mumbai: India
Book House Pvt. Ltd, 2002.

−−−, ed. Textiles in Indian Ocean Societies. London and New York:
RoutledgeCurzon, 2005.

−−−. “Indian Cotton for Cairo: The Royal Ontario Museum’s Gujarati
Textiles and the Early Western Indian Ocean Trade.” Textile
History 48, no. 1 (2017): 15-30.

Bean, Susan S. “Gandhi and Khadi: The fabric of Indian
Independence.” In Cloth and Human Experience, edited by
Annette B. Weiner and Jane Schneider, 355-76. Washington
D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989.

Cecil, Bessie. Batik Sutra: Tagore, Travels & Textiles. Kolkata: Sutra,
2011.

−−−. “Chay Red: Forgotten Dye of the Coromandel Coast.” In Marg
65, no. 2 (2013): 68-73.

Chattopadhyay, Kamaladevi. Indian Handicrafts. New Delhi: Allied
Publishers, 1963.

Cohen, Steven. “Materials and Making.” In The Fabric of India,
edited by Rosemary Crill, 16-77. London: Victoria & Albert
Museum, 2016.

Crill, Rosemary, ed. Textiles from India: The Global Trade. Calcutta:
Seagull Books, 2006.

−−−. Chintz: Indian Textiles for the West. London: Victoria and Albert
Museum, 2008.

−−−, ed. The Fabric of India. London: V&A Publishing, 2015.

Edwards, Eiluned. Textiles and Dress of Gujarat. Ahmedabad and
London: V&A Publishing in association with Mapin
Publishing, 2011.

−−−. Block Printed Textiles of India: Imprints of Culture. New Delhi:
Niyogi Books, 2016.

−−−. “Ajrakh: From Caste Dress to Catwalk.” Textile History 47, no.
2 (2016): 146-70.

Fee, Sarah., ed. Cloth That Changed the World: The Art and Fashion
of Indian Chintz. New Haven and London: Yale University
Press, 2020

Houghteling, Sylvia. The Art of Cloth in Mughal India. Princeton and
Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2022.

−−−. “Kalamkari: The Richness of its Traditions.” Art Varta (2016):
130-7.

−−−. “Sentiment in Silks: Safavid Figural Textiles in Mughal Courtly
Culture.” In Affect, Emotion, Subjectivity in Early Modern
Muslim Empires: New Studies in Ottoman, Safavid, and
Mughal Art and Culture, edited by Kishwar Rizvi, 124-47.
Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2018.

Mamidipudi, Annapurna, and Wiebe E. Bijker. “Innovation in Indian
Handloom Weaving.” Technology and Culture 59, no. 3
(2018): 505-45.

Peck, Amelia, ed. Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade,
1500-1800. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
2013.

Shah, Archana. Crafting a Future: Stories of Indian Textiles and
Sustainable Practices. New Delhi: Niyogi Books, 2021.

Sengupta, Rajarshi. “From Reference to Knowledge Repositories: On
Mimetic Aspects of Kalamkari Making,” South Asian Studies
37, no.1 (2021): 51-71.

−−−. “Performing Histories: Enduring Dyes and Waterways in
Artisanal Lives.” Journal of Textile Design Research and
Practice (2019), DOI:10.1080/20511787.2019.1648992.

−−−. “An Artisanal History of Kalam?” Journal of Textile Design
Research and Practice 7, no. 1 (2019): 25-37.

Sethi, Ritu. “Shaping Textile Futures: Those Who Led the Way,”
Marg 67, no. 4 (2016): 22-31.

Venkatesan, Soumhya. “Learning to Weave; Weaving to Learn …
What?.” In Making Knowledge: Explorations of the
Indissoluble Relation Between Mind, Body and Environment,
edited by H.J. Marchand, 150-66. London: Wiley-Blackwell,
2010.

Instructor bio

Prof. Rajarshi Sengupta

IIT Kanpur
Prof. Rajarshi Sengupta is a practitioner and art historian, presently teaching fine arts at the Dept. of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, India (2021-). Sengupta completed his PhD in art history from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver (2019), and received the IARTS Textiles of India Grant, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto (2017-18). He has published in Journal18, Journal of Textile Design Research and Practice, and South Asian Studies, among others, and contributed to Cloth that Changed the World: The Art and Fashion of Indian Chintz (2020). Sengupta exhibited his most recent textile works in the group exhibition Crafting the Crossroad, Dhi Artspace, Hyderabad (2022). Along with Dr. Baishali Ghosh, he is working on an edited book on Deccani material culture.

Course certificate

The course is free to enroll and learn from. But if you want a certificate, you have to register and write the proctored exam conducted by us in person at any of the designated exam centres.
The exam is optional for a fee of Rs 1000/- (Rupees one thousand only).
Date and Time of Exams: 
03 November 2024 Morning session 9am to 12 noon; Afternoon Session 2pm to 5pm.
Registration url: Announcements will be made when the registration form is open for registrations.
The online registration form has to be filled and the certification exam fee needs to be paid. More details will be made available when the exam registration form is published. If there are any changes, it will be mentioned then.
Please check the form for more details on the cities where the exams will be held, the conditions you agree to when you fill the form etc.

CRITERIA TO GET A CERTIFICATE

Average assignment score = 25% of average of best 3 assignments out of the total 4 assignments given in the course.
Exam score = 75% of the proctored certification exam score out of 100

Final score = Average assignment score + Exam score

YOU WILL BE ELIGIBLE FOR A CERTIFICATE ONLY IF AVERAGE ASSIGNMENT SCORE >=10/25 AND EXAM SCORE >= 30/75. If one of the 2 criteria is not met, you will not get the certificate even if the Final score >= 40/100.

Certificate will have your name, photograph and the score in the final exam with the breakup.It will have the logos of NPTEL and IIT Kanpur .It will be e-verifiable at nptel.ac.in/noc.

Only the e-certificate will be made available. Hard copies will not be dispatched.

Once again, thanks for your interest in our online courses and certification. Happy learning.

- NPTEL team


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