TEXTILE EXHIBITION : Revisiting Gandhi: The Art of Shelly Jyoti (2009-18) > 6th to 21st October 2018

Venue : Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), 1, Central Vista (CV) Mess, Janpath
Textile Artworks Shelly Jyoti
Textile Artworks by Shelly Jyoti 
Time : 10:30 am - 7:30 pm (except Mondays and Public Holidays) Add to Calendar 06/10/2018 10:30 21/10/2018 19:30 Asia/Kolkata TEXTILE EXHIBITION : Revisiting Gandhi: The Art of Shelly Jyoti (2009-18) Event Page : https://www.delhievents.com/2018/09/textile-exhibition-revisiting-gandhi-art-shelly-jyoti-ignca.html Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), 1, Central Vista (CV) Mess, Janpath, New Delhi-110001 DD/MM/YYYY - Exhibition on View

Entry : Free 

Venue : Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), 1, Central Vista (CV) Mess, Janpath, New Delhi-110001
Landmark : Opp. National Archives, adjoining India Gate Lawns
Venue Info : Events | About | Map
Metro : Nearest Metro Station - 'Central Sectt.' (Yellow Line and Violet Line)

Event Description : TEXTILE EXHIBITION : Revisiting Gandhi: The Art of Shelly Jyoti (2009-18) that resurrects Bapu’s timeless philosophy of Swaraj & Swadharma in textile-based artworks 

Delhi-based visual artist Shelly Jyoti is showing over thirty textile-based artworks - using Ajrakh printing and dyeing along with needlework on Khadi canvases - that demystify ideas of Swaraj and Swadharma. The exhibition includes four new textile site-specific installations, 30 new Ajrakh artworks on khadi, multimedia spoken word poetry and short film on making of Swaraj and collectiveness.

Jyoti has been drawn to the Gandhian philosophies of Swadharma and Swaraj since her very first solo titled Indigo Narratives in 2009 and has continued to explore these themes through Salt:The Great March in 2013 and The Khadi March: Just Five Meters held in 2016.

She says, “My work focuses on Gandhi’s ideology of nation building for creating moral and peaceful societies, which I find relevant even in the 21st century - connecting past with the present. I turned to Gandhi’s most important work Hind Swaraj  to understand the meaning and importance of the relationship between self, societies and social transformation in our fast-paced technology driven world. I was seeking a response to the idea of swadharma as a notion of patriotism. I also wanted to look at how modern India, that has achieved so much economically and culturally globally, could still connect with seventy percent of her rural population that still remains illiterate. It is in this context that I eventually decided to re-read key writings of Gandhi for insights. He taught that individuals do not have to await a social revolution and, conversely, that a better world cannot be sustained without work on the self. This is where I have found Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule enlightening. My works from 2009-2018 explore narratives of pre-independence history, colonization, Gandhi’s message to humanity and my engagement with craft communities.”

The works in the current show, therefore, are inspired by Gandhi’s seminal anti-imperialist text Hind Swaraj written in 1909. This exhibition examines elements of Gandhi’s critique of modern civilisation, noting his emphasis on an evolved ethical and spiritual self for creating an alternative perspective of a better world. To bring social revolutions for creating peaceful societies, the idea of self-rule or self-control needs to be experienced uniquely by each individual. Individuals who have harnessed their inner strength can move mountains.

An intriguing piece, created using 30 meters of handspun and handwoven Khadi material and seeped with the residual colours of ajrakh printing, is titled Residue, Reflections, Reproductions. This is Jyoti’s way of reflecting on and summing up her work in this exhibition. “In the process of creating the ajrakh scrolls, I placed lengths of fabric under each sheet before block printing the material laid out on the studio tables. The marks on the sheets are the outcome of the process of many prior works in progress, residue from the left-over dyes. I hope to convey through this piece that last decade of my life has been a period of intense study on Gandhi as well one of finding my own self, my own dilemmas, introspections, self-transformation and of reading Vedic literature to connect to Gandhi and the endless ocean. I feel through this process I’m coming closer to comprehending and understanding my life and artistic journey.” 

In a twelve-piece wall-mounted installation work titled Lunar Swell: Swaraj, Sarvodya, Swadharma (Ajrakh printing, dyeing, piecing and needle work), Jyoti is inspired by the powerful moon that orbits the earth, changing appearance due to its position in relation to the earth and sun. “The moon changes its structure after every 29 days and its cycle of repetition.  To me, this crescent moon that has a powerful allure, beauty, legend and myth has a timeless quality.  The idea of Swaraj is timeless, whether it was Gandhi’s narration of Hind Swaraj critiquing western modernity, or Tilak’s famous quote’ Swaraj is my birth right’ or Swami Vivekananda referring to Swaraj as internal awakening during Arya Samaj movement in early 20th century. Although without alluding to the specific historicity of events, Swaraj and Swadharma seem eternal and embedded in time.

Another site-specific installation titled Lunar Swell: Civilization and Collective Forces consists of 32 Indigo-dyed khadi fabric strips in variable sizes that will be installed in shape of a semi-circle representing sequential movement and alluding to the nature of time itself. It calls to mind the endless ebb and flow of tides, the continual revolution of undersea and the state of perpetual motion. The gradually folding and merging of hues of blue amalgamate to make one whole where water is the beginning and end of life. Explains Jyoti: “This work is inspired by the idea of collective living of human worth in comparison to modern civilization where there is greater emphasis on material comfort.”

A large 36x50 inch work titled Lunar Swell: A Dusk Moment & Terminator (ajrakh printing and dyeing on khadi) depicts theboundary between the illuminated and darkened hemispheres. Gandhi wrote Hind Swaraj with the backdrop of 20th century events like World War 1, the Holocaust, Stalin’s repressive regime, Pol Pot’s genocide, atrocities in the name of religion, repression of individual freedom in the name of fundamentalism and much more. That was his transient moment of understanding where modern civilization was heading for, and Hind Swaraj was conceived in this background as a critique of European /western modernity.

Jyoti expresses her understanding of Hind Swaraj as such, “Today it’s a dusk moment for us in early 21st century, considering how technology has taken over our lives. It’s is an idea of being self-aware enough to eschew the temptations that modern civilization offers, and consider -  how do we measure success, progress and development with material terms? Just like the lunar terminator is the boundary between the illuminated and darkened hemispheres, this artwork is inspired by the optical illusionary line in the dusk moment as the transient instant defining the light and dark.”

Another captivating series of 20 ajrakh scrolls is titled the Fish series, inspired by micro-organisms in water, such as trillions of tiny fish collaborating together, displacing water to create oceanic currents, waves and turbulence in undersea environment. Through this, Jyoti examines the idea of ‘collectiveness’ and ‘collective impact’ that can bring about social change with evolved and spiritually self-aware communities.

Shelly Jyoti is a visual artist, fashion designer, poet and an independent curator. Her work focuses on Gandhi’s ideology of nation building for creating moral and peaceful societies, relevant for 21st century, connecting past with the present. She works with various media, excavating from colonial history and celebrating the subaltern. She is trained as a fashion designer from National Institute of Fashion Technology, New Delhi, and she earned her MA in English Literature from Punjab University, Chandigarh.

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TEXTILE EXHIBITION : Revisiting Gandhi: The Art of Shelly Jyoti (2009-18) > 6th to 21st October 2018 TEXTILE EXHIBITION : Revisiting Gandhi: The Art of Shelly Jyoti (2009-18) > 6th to 21st October 2018 Reviewed by DelhiEvents on Sunday, October 21, 2018 Rating: 5

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