Project by Sarah Salins
As one of the world’s leading exporters of textiles, the Indian textile industry employs nearly 45 million people and has a large influence on the state of India from the macro to micro levels. The larger factories are supportive of an export economy — In a cycle of production we can trace this as follows: from a micro level we can look at the materials themselves. Major exports include cotton, jute, slink, and wool, and are heavily tied into regional practices. From here the production starts from spinning yarns, to sewing, weaving, and other fabric practices. The dying process that gives Indian textiles their famed vibrancy - natural as it used to be, to now a heavy use of acidic and azo dyes - synthetic - can happen in a variety of stages. Embedded in all of this, workers have a direct hand, both in production and in the side effects Framed as a graphic novel or comic and using the orthographic perspectives often found in Mughal Era paintings, there is a certain kind of satire at play. The vibrant colors and composition hide a more toxic underbelly – the agents literally sitting on the outlines of a textile-waste landscape. The style lends itself to paying homage to the history of the Indian textile industry, which cannot be fully understood without acknowledging its past under colonial influences.
