We are delighted to announce the opening of SHIFTING IDENTITIES curated by Archi Banerjee, in collaboration with Deena Pindoria.

DETAILS:
Exhibition Opening & Walkthrough with the Curator
Date & Time: 30 August 2025 (Saturday) | 6.30 pm

On view till 06 December 2025

SHIFTING IDENTITIES brings together Tangail sarees from West Bengal–Bangladesh and Meghwal embroidery and Ajrakh printing from Sindh–Gujarat–Rajasthan. Separated by language, geography, and technique, these textile crafts, spread across political borderlines in modern South Asia, share a turbulent history shaped by the Partition of the subcontinent.

For women, migration has long been a way of life–marital customs necessitating them to leave their natal homes to rebuild life in another household. Partition layered this personal uprooting with political displacement. Textile-crafts once tied to ritual and everyday use adapted to new realities, carrying with them shifting meanings and identities.

Within many traditional craft practices, where strict gendered borders once held, the changes brought by Partition and its lingering shadow unsettled old structures and opened new spaces. Women stepped into skills once denied to them, reimagining practices through lived experience and infusing them with new meanings–enriching craft vocabularies and redefining tradition.

Through the voices and work of women, Shifting Identities invites you to read each motif, stitch, and technique not just as a functional or aesthetic detail, but as a living archive of memory, resilience, and reinvention–offering a glimpse into the ways cultural identities endured and transformed in the 78 years since Partition.

Archi Banerjee is a designer, craft researcher, and scholar of South Asian art history, with a particular focus on living traditions and textile crafts. A MEAD Fellow from the University of the Arts London and a graduate of the London College of Fashion, her work explores how Partition reshaped the subcontinent’s craft communities. Through fieldwork, curatorial projects, and critical writing, she examines questions of heritage, cultural continuity, displacement, and identity in South Asia. She currently works as a Research Specialist at MAP Academy, Art and Photography Foundation, Bengaluru.

Deena Pindoria is a visual artist exploring the intersections of tradition, history, and community collaboration, with a focus on Ajrakh block printing and natural dyes. Her work engages with traditional textiles, architectural motifs, and evolving cultural narratives, drawing from her collaborations with artisan communities in Kachchh. She has exhibited at prestigious platforms such as Art Dubai, Art Mumbai, Art Brussels, and DCAW, and has been recognized with awards like the Space118 Fine Art Grant and the Kala Sakshi Art Scholarship and The Art Family (TAF) Emerging Artist Award.

Venue: Arthshila Ahmedabad
2-G, Opposite Ahmedabad Management Association, Panjrapol, Ambawadi – 380015.