This talk looks at the forms of textile work as occupational therapy that were offered to displaced Bangladeshi women following the 1971 war alongside the development of contemporary NGO-supported handicraft work and ready-made garments labor. It traces, in particular, the changing form and function of nakshi kanthas, embroidered quilts that are instantly recognizable as local to Bangladesh. Kanthas are a vehicle of speech, telling stories of the women who make them and bearing the traces of their labor and their investment. Once intensely personal art objects, they have become consumer goods, sold on an international fair-trade handicraft market and stripped of their functional origins as artifacts of familial care and contact. This new life of the nakshi kantha is synchronized with the life of the new Bangladeshi nation, its revival as a valued art form sponsored by the projects of international development and microfinance. Thus, we must ask, what happens when this intimate practice is commercialized into a commodity?
Image: Kantha (Embroidered Quilt), Artist/maker unknown, Bengali, Philadelphia Museum.
About the speaker:
Poulomi Saha is Associate Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley. She is affiliated faculty in the Programs in Critical Theory and Gender and Womens Studies, and teaches courses in postcolonial studies, gender and sexuality theory, and ethnic American literature. Her first book, An Empire of Touch: Womens Political Labor & The Fabrication of East Bengal (Columbia UP, 2019), was awarded the Harry Levin Prize for outstanding first book by the American Comparative Literature Association in 2020 and the Helen Tartar First Book Subvention Prize in 2017.
Accessibility:
If you require an accommodation for effective communication (ASL interpreting/CART captioning, alternative media formats, etc.) to fully participate in this event, please contact pahma-programs@berkeley.edu with as much advance notice as possible and at least 7-10 days in advance of the event. This event may be available as a recording with captioning at a later date.
