A project encompassing film, photography and installation from the Field work on/with Tangail Sharee weavers 2023-2024
The installation comprises Tangail Sharee, different materials related to weaving, and the experimental documentary film as the central component from the fieldwork on/with traditional Tangail Sharee weavers in Bangladesh. This speculative archival storytelling deals with the vulnerabilities of the centuries-old intergenerational handloom practices of the community on one hand, which were reduced to 750 families only from the millions in the early 80s, and preservation of the local craft on the other hand. With an embodied, spatial and processual understanding, this experimental documentary examines the tension between the political economy of an Indigenous craft practice against technological aggression of mechanical reproduction, legal GI (Geogrphical Indication) fights for extractive labour purposes, bio piracies and endangerd communities’ resiliance from a co-existing heterogenous relationships of cultural, material and symbolic aspect of Tangail Sharee, what locals refer to the artist as ‘Digging dead from the Grave.’
