Aditi Jain, Ruchi Shah, Verena Gerlach, Henning Wagenbreth
Travelling Patterns is the latest in a line of books that engage with textiles and textile art. It is a unique visual assemblage—in which pattern-making travels from textile to paper, from the decorative to the narrative, and from one context to another.
The book emerged out of an intent and a workshop. Dr Katharina Gorgen of the Goethe Institut, Chennai wanted to explore the possibilities of working with contemporary artists and designers from India and Germany, on a project that would rework traditional patterns, found in an array of objects: textiles, jewellery, ceramics, monuments… we were called in as a potential publishing partner and the heritage museum, Dakshinachitra, as a possible exhibition host.
Since we had worked with textile block-makers from the coastal town of Masulipatnam in the past— for our textile book, The Cloth of the Mother Goddess—we suggested that we focus on the patterns created by them. For us, this appeared an exciting prospect, and for two reasons.
For one, since we began publishing, we had been drawn to textile art. An early title, The Art of Survival, featured female quilting cultures of resistance from across the world. We had plans to do a cloth book for children in the late 1990s. The book was to feature Kalamkari art, and we thought we would communicate its special features by block printing on cloth. For various reasons, we did not do that cloth book and instead, it was published as an offset printed book—Mangoes and Bananas—whose design simulates the texture of cloth.