The Kotpad Project

Kirsten Scott and Kevin Murden

Deep localisation: A future of internationalised European design schools?

The negative impacts of colonialism and globalisation on India’s cultural textile sector have been well-documented. Western design cultures continue to propagate specific concepts of modernity, globally, at the expense of local, non-western and sustainable traditions which have been described as sacrifice zones to the expansion of the global fashion industry. Is there, now, a responsibility for Western fashion schools to help to preserve and promote the cultural crafts and clothing systems that the global fashion industry has all but erased? Are there, in fact, some particular advantages that these schools might bring to supporting endangered traditions?

Kotpad tribal textiles represent many centuries of embodied knowledge of how to produce materials for clothing that are emotionally and environmentally sustainable. However, these precious textiles are no longer economically sustainable. The Kotpad artisan community of Odisha in India face the mounting suffocation of their tribal identity, culture, craft and knowledge by intersecting external factors that are outside of their control and by internal cultural factors that are constricting opportunity.

This research offers a case study of the ways that deeply-localised, project-based learning might equip students and tutors in London and Mumbai with contextualised skills and knowledge that have the potential to revitalise fashion’s sacrifice zones. At the request of the artisan community of Kotpad, mediated by representatives from Creative Bee, Hyderabad, a holistic project was co-created to deliver a series of staged interventions. A field visit by Mevin Murden (IMM) and Kirsten Scott (IML) to Kotpad in December 2022, accompanied by Bina Rao from Creative Bee, enabled initial, informal, interviews to take place, samples to be collected, observation and documentation conducted and analysed. A collaborative project plan was agreed.

Subsequently, researchers and a film and photography crew from IMM and IML comprehensively documented the materials, techniques and processes of Kotpad textiles; recorded oral histories; conducted semi-structured interviews with women dyers and male weavers; held a focus group with local youth; and training was delivered in online retailing, visual communication and branding. IMM and IML students and faculty developed new textile designs (within parameter dictated by the artisans) and fashion designs, and more commercial ranges proposed. Selected student collections generated sample garments that demonstrate the enormous potential of Kotpad textiles in contemporary, sustainable fashion. In commissioning textiles, and through sampling with these materials, their potentialities were revealed and recommendations made for future development that may assist this community in negotiating change, to preserve and promote an at-risk textile tradition.

Website and instagram handle:

https://www.researchiml.com/kotpadproject

@mevinism

@kirstenscottz