পুনরায় / Punaray: A Return to Process

Kashfia Arif, in her research paper, positions textile as an active, mobile force that carries stories, bodies and resistance across time and space. She discusses the textile-based works of 3 Bangladeshi artists: Tasleema Alam, Najmun Nahar Keya and Yasmin Jahan Nupur, and how they use textile not only as a tangible medium, but as a methodology that connects past and present. Kashfia discusses the textile-based work of three female Bangladeshi artists: Tasleema Alam, Najmun Nahar Keya, and Yasmin Jahan Nupur, bringing their distinct, yet interconnected, practices together to explore how each artist mobilises textile as a medium of resistance, continuity, and transformation, translating past knowledge for the present.

Alam’s Symbols of Power, created in collaboration with Jamdani artisans, reimagines heritage motifs within one of Bangladesh’s most iconic textile traditions. Guided by the principle that “tradition is new ways of doing old things,” she positions Jamdani not as a static heritage, but as a living form of cultural endurance.

Keya’s The Spell Song translates Khona’s bochon (folk proverbs composed by the medieval astrologer) into a text-based sot sculpture, created from Tangail sarees, reviving feminist knowledge through voice, language, and material.

Nupur’s participatory performance Let Me Get You a Nice Cup of Tea invites viewers to share tea and stories, seated around a table mapped with textile representations of colonial trade routes—foregrounding the enduring impact of empire on everyday rituals and identities.

Through practices of weaving, stitching, and storytelling, these artists use textile not only as a medium, but as a methodology: erasing erasure, translating memory, and stitching together alternate futures and world-making. They create transformative affective archives that connect past and present, oral and material culture, body and land, and the individual and collective. By braiding their work into a single narrative, Kashfia positions textile as an active, mobile force—a carrier of stories, bodies, and resistance across time and space.

Kashfia Arif is a cultural scholar, curator, writer, and editor. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Theory and Criticism at Western University, Canada, researching absurdism and creative practices in contemporary visual culture. 

Farzana Yusuf and Saifur Rahman delve into migration history, skill transmission - and its silent transformation- of Mirpur Katan, a craft currently in decline. With relocation, artisanal processes are inevitably reshaped, adapting to new environments and circumstances. This quiet yet significant movement not only carries with it the tangible aspects of craftsmanship, but also the intangible history embedded within the fabric of Katan. Saifur and Farzana examine the historical trajectory and cultural adaptation of the Katan weaving community in Mirpur, Dhaka, focusing on the socio-material implications of pre- and post-Partition migration from Varanasi. Drawing from firsthand interviews, observations, ethnographic fieldwork, and textile material and process analysis, they investigate how stories of generational memory and adaptation are embedded in the processes of making, and how displacement has reshaped not only the individual and collective identities but also the craft of their forefathers.

Their study unpacks how these processes have evolved in response to constraints of the new environment, shifting market demands, and generational knowledge transfer. It situates the evolution of the Mirpur Katan saree within a broader framework of urbanization, marginality, and intangible cultural heritage, and argues that the weaving practices of this community represent more than artisanal continuity; they constitute acts of resilience and re-invention that negotiate belonging in the face of spatial and cultural rupture. The research contributes to scholarship on migration-affected crat ecologies, diasporic cultural production, and the politics of heritage in South Asia.

Farzana Yusuf is an impact strategist and a researcher working at the intersection of sustainability, entrepreneurship, and textile design. A member of the Executive Committee of the National Crafts Council of Bangladesh (NCCB) and an advisor at Women Forward International (WFI) in Washington, DC, Farzana continues to advocate for sustainable, culturally rooted design practices.

Sk. Saifur Rahman is a multifaceted professional whose work spans journalism, fashion, and cultural preservation. A senior journalist and former Deputy Editor of Prothom Alo, he is also an executive committee member and former General Secretary of the National Crats Council of Bangladesh (NCCB), and has contributed to numerous publications both nationally and internationally. 

The workshop explored the idea of recycling fragments from our unconscious—retrieving buried images, sensations, and memories, and bringing them into the light of conscious awareness. The process began with reflecting on a deeply personal experience, whether comfortable or unsettling, that has left a lasting imprint.

Through this introspection, each artistic gesture became an act of transformation. Drawing and colour were deliberately linked to specific emotions or personal memories, so that every line, shade, and texture acted as a bridge between the inner world and the external artwork. A strong emphasis was placed on the sensorial dimension of creation, particularly the tactile experience—feeling the texture of the paint, the resistance of the surface, the physical presence of colour. This haptic connection reinforced the intimate relationship between artist and medium, enabling a deeper embodiment of the emotional and psychological states being explored. In the first phase, participants collaborated on a large-scale collective drawing on a long roll of paper. They then painted eyes or portraits on unconventional objects, such as plastic bottles, which were later assembled into a collective installation.

Conceived as a form of scenography, the installation incorporated spotlights, transforming the space into a play of light and shadow, where the painted objects themselves became the actors on stage.

This series is part of artist Bishwajit Goswami’s ongoing art research project, হাজারীবাগ / Hazaribagh (A Thousand Gardens)—a multidisciplinary exploration of reconnection through memory and transformation. Goswami, through his travels, examines Hazaribagh as a contested landscape shaped by histories of displacement and movement often challenging human capacity for renewal. পদ্ম / PODDO centers on the resilience of migrant women who have resettled in Old Dhaka after losing their homes to natural disasters and economic hardship in different parts of Bangladesh. These women, now engaged in the informal plastic recycling trade along the Buriganga River, have forged paths of survival and self-empowerment through waste picking and sorting. Their labor—often invisible, yet indispensable—speaks to broader themes of sustainability and the power of collective adaptation.

Goswami’s mixed-media works incorporate recycled materials, archival photographs, found objects, and natural earth elements, executed on wooden panels and resin. The pieces mirror processes of layering and preservation where each object, like each life, carries an imprint of the past with a possibility of transformation for the future.

Commissioned and collected by Brihatta Art Foundation

RIVER CHANTS is a multidisciplinary project at the intersections of climate change and migration, shifting the narrative from those who leave to those who remain. It explores these global challenges through folk songs tied to waterways, emphasising women, who often preserve these musical traditions and are less likely to migrate. It observes these phenomena through a “sonic and poetic hydrology,” where water is an element for connection.

Led by artist Giuditta Vendrame and director Ana Shametaj, the project draws on the academic expertise of Bishawjit Mallick (climate change and migration), Costanza Sartoris (feminist new materialism), Radha Kapuria and Priyanka Basu (ecomusicology).

RIVER CHANTS is a research project granted by Creatività Contemporanea of the Italian Ministry of Culture – MiC under the Italian Council program (2024) and Stimuleringsfonds. In Bangladesh, the River Chants project is being facilitated by the Samdani Art Foundation.

The ‘গঙ্গাবুড়ি / Gangaburi’ River Heritage Project was launched in 2023 by Brihatta Art Foundation, with support from the EUNIC Bangladesh cluster, including Alliance Française de Dhaka, British Council, Goethe-Institut Bangladesh, the EU Delegation in Bangladesh, the Embassy of Italy in Bangladesh, and the Embassy of Spain in Bangladesh. The second phase, initiated in 2024, was supported by British Council Bangladesh.

The title of this project is inspired by the song “Gangaburi” by Kafil Ahmed.