The subjects of ethnology and textiles teem with chroniclers of every kind. There are academics, anthropologists, psycho-geographers and arm-chair researchers. However, the constant figure in the landscape is the traveller and the explorer. To the layman, the job of an ethnologist may just be to fill in the bits. But in the contemporary language of this discipline, the research is expected to manifest nothing less than a society’s identity, a community’s culture and survival. To meet a scholar as focused as Paola Manfredi is illuminating.

Born in Genoa, Italy, Manfredi has a personal way of going to the heart of the matter and identifying what is required. Better known as a specialist on preservation and development of South Asian Traditional Crafts with a special focus on textiles, she has been working as a consultant for various international development organisations based in India, Bangladesh, Zambia and Pakistan. In 2008, she worked for the World Crafts Council as a conduit between South Africa and the WCC Headquarters in Chennai, India.

In the interview below with The News on Sunday (TNS), she reminisces about her love at first sight with traditional textiles, about how it grew into a chronic love affair, and finally into a life-long obsession with a special kind of embroidery, ‘chikankari’, culminating in the book: Chikankari: A Lucknawi Tradition.

The News on Sunday (TNS): What was your first foray into the field of traditional textiles?

Paola Manfredi (PM): While I was studying ethnology at L’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Socialies in Paris, I had started doing tiny jobs at the Musee de l’Homme with Francoise Cousin, and a refined gentleman, Bernard Dupaigne, who had been researching Central Asian textiles. His wife was a filmmaker who had documented Ikat in Afghanistan, for a special branch of the French Film Division called Cine Res – centre for documenting cultural activities. Whenever Dupaigne would return from his frequent trips to Asia, he would have a display of those splendid pieces he’d brought home from Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia. It would always be a feast for the eyes and the soul. I had my initial training as a helper in putting description notes under each textile item on display from Central Asia. That’s when I got completely mesmerised by the Asian tradition of textiles (and not just the Indian textiles); in fact, more by the Central Asian embroideries and weaves than anything else. As far as I can remember, India was not very well-represented at that point. Francoise, however, documented block prints from Sanganer, Rajasthan, and later on, wrote a book and exhibited at the museum. This is what got me interested in textiles, and this is when I started learning about techniques and textures.

TNS: How did you first arrive in India?

PM: For the next few years, my life took me into another direction: I got a job as a librarian at the Bibliotheque in Centre Pompidou in Beaubourg, Paris. When I joined it, the building was still under construction. Then I went back to Italy and started working as a sociologist with a marketing firm. It was a purely commercial enterprise, and I had no interest in it. While in Italy, I decided to join a design school with a curriculum that relied on technical studies, thinking I would also get to travel and pursue my interest in textiles while adding technical competence to my knowhow. Around the end of my diploma course at the school, I was called by its director. The school had a branch that dealt with consultancy for textiles companies. The director who was already aware of my desire to work abroad offered me to go to India for a month, on a short consultancy. That was the beginning of my adventure in India. When I came back after a month, the same firm hired me for another six months. I accepted the offer thinking I would also get to do things other than dealing with garments. These six months of stay in Delhi led to another six months until I started working for another company for three years. During those 4-5 productive years in India, I met a lot of well-connected people. Malavika Singh was publishing a very interesting magazine in those days called The India Magazine. I wrote a couple of pieces for it across the years. I had the opportunity to meet Pupul Jayakar who had a very charismatic and impressive personality. I can’t claim to have had a personal interaction with her, though. During her last days when she had retired, she was living between Delhi and Bombay. She had grown quite bitter and disillusioned about some of the institutions that she had tried to build and establish because with the passage of time they had become bureaucratic, and had lost their creativity, energy and dynamism – what were essentially the building blocks of the traditional handloom. I also met Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay who was the president of India International Centre. Back in the ’80s, there was a group of people involved with the Festival of India, and the textiles exhibition Vishwakarma that took place in New York. There was tremendous energy all around. Then I met Rta Kapur Chishti who along with Amba Sanyal travelled state by state, village after village, to collect and document the Indian tradition. Delhi was still like a village, and people with interest in textiles, for instance, made for a small community. I remember the discussion between Latika Wardharajan and Martand Singh aka Mapu. Mapu was in favour of following the master craftsmanship and taking it to a higher level. Latika, on the contrary, had a grassroots approach. There was a conflict between these two titans. Latika was extremely outspoken who believed in education for artisans, to work with a broad base of craftspeople and not just picking up the masters and patronising them.

TNS: What did you learn about the early Europeans in India trading in textiles?

PM: There were numerous starts in various directions. While I was working in the garments sector, I was constantly questioning my role as a representative of the European tradition in India to handle the production with elements taken from the traditional textiles, and from the immense sources of craftsmanship that existed in India, to incorporate into a Western style. A lot of Western designers coming to India, going around collecting traditional textiles, picking out elements of design and putting them together were coming up with their own interpretation. I started out with the early arrival of the Europeans in India and their involvement with the Indian textiles, and how the trade in textiles started in exchange for spices. I was going through the correspondence from the collection centres of different companies, whether French or Dutch. And I was amazed to read about their problems vis-à-vis their delivery on time according to their requirements. I must say that 400 years down the road, they still have the same problem of non-conformity to the specifications. All these exchanges through pattern books inspired the Indian craftsman whose production aspired to the Western taste and had an exotic appeal but not merely on the decorative level. I also learnt about the hand-printed cotton cloth in fast colours unknown in 15-16^th Century Europe. People would come specifically to ‘spy’ on the dyer’s secret and technique in order to reproduce it in Europe. A competition was held merging and re-elaborating textiles such as the Machilipatnam and Palampore depicting the Tree of Life in combination of Chinese, Indian and European elements put together as something original and extraordinarily beautiful. I got drawn to the Indian textiles looking at the merger between the East and the West. There was a fusion yet the pieces acquired a distinctive identity. A similar kind of fusion can be witnessed in case of the Kashmiri shawl. I also started reading about the Western textile industry in Manchester, England, set up in order to reproduce cheaper-quality but rich in variety Indian textiles to capture the world market of textiles. Until the early ’80s, Indian textiles had not been of much consideration, and had it not been through major efforts like Vishwakarma: Master Craftsmen of India and Costumes of Royal India held at the Met in New York. Pupul Jayakar provided incredible impetus to the image of the Indian textiles and their craftsmanship of a very high standard. 

The writer is an art critic based in Islamabad