An exhibition in Delhi reimagines kantha as a language of repair and renewal

Long before it entered galleries or design studios, kantha lived in the rhythms of everyday life. In homes across Bengal, layers of worn cotton saris and dhotis were stacked together and held in place with a running stitch, creating soft, durable quilts for daily use. Over time, these surfaces became more than functional objects, carrying within them fragments of memory, labour, and care.

Threads that Bind: The Kantha Project, on view till March 20, 2026, at Gallery Vayu in Delhi’s Lodhi Colony, builds on this legacy while extending kantha into 34 contemporary artworks. Led by the pandemic-born artisan ecosystem Creative Dignity, the showcase brings together designers, artist studios, and artisan clusters across Bengal to work entirely with pre-loved textiles. 

“What we wanted to revisit was the essence of kantha,” says Amit Vijaya, co-founder, Amrich Designs and curator of the exhibition with utsaco. “Not surface embellishment, but repurposing and reuse. That’s really where it started.”

Despite its varied formats, the exhibition that has works from Weavers Studio, Amrich Designs, utsaco and Mahua Natural Fabrics, resists the urge to frame kantha as ornament or nostalgia. Instead, it returns to what it has always been: an act of repair.

From fragments to form

The materials themselves shape the works. About three years ago, the team began reaching out across craft communities, as well as to friends and family, inviting contributions of textiles that were no longer in use. Donations ranged from everyday cotton saris to jamdanis and even Benaras fabrics, some of which artisans were initially hesitant to work with.

For Amit, this approach felt instinctive. “In 15 years, we’ve never thrown fabric away at Amrich,” he says. “During Covid, I started putting these pieces together, patchworking without an end goal.”

These intuitive compositions became the base for several works. In Fragmented, patchworked textiles, including shibori cut-offs, come together in a stark palette of black, white and greys. “The idea was that the world itself feels fragmented and so is our vision,” he explains.

In Luna Blue the intervention is more subtle. Kantha stitches pull and reshape the surface of shibori, altering its fluidity.

The slow work of many hands

If the starting point was instinctive, the making was anything but quick. These textiles unfolded over months, sometimes years, moving between designers and artisan clusters.

Kanika Mukerji, founder, utsaco, works with around 35 women across villages in Birbhum. “One of our pieces took nearly two years,” she says. “One artisan worked on the centre, others on the borders. That’s the nature of kantha, it evolves.”

In Blue Roses, her studio explores the potential of the most basic running stitch. The surface is densely worked, creating an almost embossed effect. “It’s still a rudimentary stitch,” she says. “But it can create so many different textures.”

Another work, Ode to Indigo, draws from a traditional kantha layout — a medallion-like lotus motif — rendered on a donated jamdani sari, possibly over two decades old. Threads dyed in multiple shades of indigo, grown and processed by utsaco, create subtle tonal shifts across the surface.

Not every piece places kantha at the forefront. Kanika recalls working on a damaged Tree of Life artwork that had faded and begun to tear. “It was very fragile,” she says. “We layered it with cloth, dyed threads to match, and traced the design through very fine stitches. Kantha doesn’t always have to be the hero, it can be the supporting actor.”

This approach reframes the craft, shifting it from decoration to structure, becoming more about preserving and extending.

Expanding the vocabulary

Across the exhibition, kantha moves between tradition and experimentation. Techniques like shibori are reinterpreted through stitch, sometimes to the point of transformation.

In Pinwheel Madness inspired by Bangladeshi kantha known for its geometric restraint, motifs are reworked into something more playful. “We wanted to try something bizarre,” Amit says, referencing the spinning ‘phirki’ of childhood.

Elsewhere, a grid-like composition imagines each panel as a neighbourhood, interspersed with traditional motifs. “It was about asking, where did all the trees go?” he says, pointing to an underlying ecological concern.

Material contrasts also come into play. One work uses a white base with muga silk thread to recreate the sheen of more opulent fabrics. Another combines patchwork, quilting, and surface embroidery to evoke a cityscape under an incoming storm — making the art look layered, dense, and unsettled.

A shared language of repair

What ties these diverse works together is not a single aesthetic, but a shared approach. Kantha, here, is placed in conversation with other global practices of repair — Japanese boro and sashiko or Korean pojagi — each rooted in similar ideas of reuse and care.

Within India too, parallels emerge, from ralli quilts in Punjab and Haryana to other regional traditions of patchwork and layering. “There is no blueprint in kantha,” Amit says. “Each piece is a story. One person’s kantha will never be the same as another’s.”

In a design landscape often driven by speed and excess, the exhibition offers a quieter alternative. These are not pristine surfaces, but layered ones— stitched, worn, and made again. Kantha, in that sense, does not just survive; it continues to shift, one thread at a time.

The exhibition is on till March 20, 2026 at Gallery Vayu, 14, Main Market Lodhi Road, New Delhi. Open daily, 11am – 7pm