At first glance, the riot of colour that greets visitors to No ‘One’ Maker: Textiles as Community is arresting. Patchworked quilts unfold in saturated hues, grids shift into improvisation, and surfaces resist containment. But the exhibition at Bikaner House in New Delhi is less about visual spectacle than about rethinking a foundational idea in art and craft: who gets to be called the maker.
Curated by Sreyansi Singh and presented by the Inherited Arts Forum, the exhibition positions textiles as sites of shared authorship. “What I tried to do with this exhibition… is when we wanted to look a little deeper into this whole idea of indigenous artists and art that the gallery has been representing for the last nine years,” Singh says.
“And what we wanted to see is how can we frame collaborative frameworks that could perhaps deeply enhance what the context of these crafts could be, what the context of these art practices could be, and how to also take it forward.”
Her emphasis is on making visible what often remains uncredited. “Because these collaborations are not something that are any way stopping. It’s just without credit when it happens, largely in textiles especially. To also bring forth the makers in each of the sections of this exhibition.”
The exhibition unfolds across three sections, beginning with long-term collaborations between contemporary practitioners and indigenous communities. Among the most compelling is Anita Reddy’s decade-long engagement with the Siddi community in north Karnataka.
What began as a simple act of learning has evolved into a sustained practice of facilitation. “When Anita went there, her only aim was to learn stitching with these women. There was no aim of reviving the practice. There was no aim of anything beyond just learning from them,” Singh notes.
Over time, this engagement has reshaped both practice and perception. Siddi quilting, or kavand, traditionally created for domestic use, now carries narratives of everyday life. Women translate their surroundings into fabric, from children playing to temples and forests. Each quilt is distinct, shaped without sketches or blueprints.
“They never see the quilt in its entirety… It’s designed through the brain and it’s that design intelligence that the community holds,” Singh explains. That intelligence, she suggests, is central to indigenous knowledge systems but often overlooked.
Design Intelligence
The collaboration is also marked by care and responsibility. Building trust within a marginalised community required time and presence. Reddy continues to live with the community for extended periods, facilitating rather than directing. The results have enabled a measure of economic independence, with quilts now sold internationally. Yet recognition within India remains limited, underscoring the uneven visibility of such practices.
Equally significant are the smaller interventions that shift authorship. Each quilt is signed, and every maker is named. “So that no maker is… So we don’t have a practice of signing textiles in India. So Anita brings that about so that their name doesn’t go missed anywhere,” Singh says. These gestures, while subtle, challenge entrenched hierarchies in textile production.
A similar dynamic appears in the work of textile studio Morii, led by Brinda Dudhat and Kabir, with Mansukh Bhai Khatri, a custodian of Bela block printing. Once sustained by trade routes in Kutch, the practice declined as communities migrated for work.
Working with archival blocks, some nearly a century old, the collaborators developed a new visual language. Dense patterns were broken into singular motifs and repeated to create open compositions. “It’s just about the design in itself and it’s about the intelligence of coming together and finding a way to make it look contemporary without changing the tradition,” Singh says.
The second section of the exhibition turns to indigenous practitioners working within their own communities. Here, authorship is rooted in continuity rather than collaboration with external designers.
Hannah Khiangte’s work in Mizoram exemplifies this approach. Through the Thembu project, she introduces weaving to schoolchildren, embedding it within education systems. The installation on view reflects this pedagogical model, with looms arranged to evoke collective learning.
Singh frames this as a response to a larger crisis. “When you speak to a weaver, you will always hear from them, no, but our kid won’t do this,” she says, pointing to the erosion of craft traditions as younger generations seek other livelihoods. The issue is not a lack of skill but a lack of value. “We’ve looked down upon the weaving community, we’ve looked down upon crafts… It’s almost like a zoo-like fantasy, and those are animals that have to be performing for us.”
In this context, Khiangte’s work becomes an act of reclamation.
Reclaiming the Loom
Traditional garments such as the puan are reinterpreted through subtle interventions in colour and spacing, while retaining their symbolic vocabulary. Motifs continue to reference landscape, animals and cosmology. “These motifs all stand for the nature that they come from… They represent hills. They represent animals. They represent their own sacredness towards nature,” Singh says.
The final section introduces first-time collaborations, where experimentation is more visible. Among these is the partnership between Mangala Bai Marawi, a Baiga tattoo artist, and Abraham & Thakore. Tattoo practices traditionally inscribed on the body are translated into ikkat and red paint.
Other collaborations explore similar translations. In the pairing of Bhuri Bai with the design studio Harago, the artist’s signature dots drawn from Bhil painting reappear within bandhani and leheriya textiles as bindis and resist dyed patterns. Warli artist Balu Jivya Mashe’s works are layered with metallic interventions by Rimzim Dadu, lifting motifs into a sculptural form. Jigmat Couture’s reinterpretation of Ladakhi garments offers a more contained negotiation, preserving narrative even as form shifts.
What binds the exhibition is a consistent attention to labour. Wall texts name not only lead artists but also artisans, weavers and collaborators, reshaping how authorship is understood. Contributors shape their own narratives and participate in its framing. “They are co-curators as much as they can be,” adds Singh.