The Khadi March: ‘Just five meters’ (2016)
By Shelly Jyoti
October 20- 26, 2016
Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre, Lodi Road,
New Delhi 110003.
Opening reception: Thursday, 20th October 6.00 pm
These works are in continuation of Shelly jyoti’s previous works ‘Indigo Narratives’ (2009-14) and ‘Salt: The Great March’ (2013-15)
The Khadi March: Just five meters by Shelly Jyoti explore the philosophy of Gandhi’s khadi traversing human lives and humanity in 21st century. He thought handspun khadi would emerge from India’s handlooms not just to costume the nation but also to change the essential character of its people, altering colonial subjects into ‘proud citizens’. The story of khadi still resonates more than sixty-six years after India gained Independence from the perspective to create better and alternative societies.
The featured works have two aims, one to touch upon the idea of swadharma towards nation and secondly explore a solution to uplift the rural population. The first is an ideology stemming from Vedas (Ancient Indian texts composed in Sanskrit) second is setting the context of finding a solution to bridge and connect rural (70%). The gist of the thought can be put in a simple way of buying five yards of khadi by thirty crore urban population to empower spinners, weaver and unremunerated village citizens and bring them livelihood. This form of swadharma would be an effortless exchange of sacrifice and gain woven through the notion of patriotism, purity and sacrifice.
The Khadi March: Just five meters is a call to action that challenges people who live in urban cities to grant dignity to the rural brethren and to rethink our engagement with the spinners, weavers and people who work with handicrafts in the villages.
These work comprises of many khadi site-specific installations, 20 Ajrakh textile artworks and multi media spoken poetry art.
MORE INFORMATION TO BE UPDATED