BREATHING NEW LIFE

Priyanka Sacheti meets Anitha Reddy - the woman who is working hard to get the indigenous art of quilt-making the attention it deserves

- Priyanka Sacheti

A decade ago, community-based art practitioner, curator, and researcher Anitha Reddy was visiting the home of a friend in a village located in the Western Ghats of Karnataka. The friend belonged to the Siddi community. Reddy was drawn to a familiar-looking fabric in a kavand or hand-stitched patchwork quilt, which women from the community have made for generations. She soon realised the fabric was from an item of clothing she had given to the family during one of her previous visits, having cultivated a close relationship with them over the last few years. "I thought about how the family had used my clothing, weaving memories of my visit into the quilt itself," she reflects. Thus began her association with the Siddi women quilters. Since then, Reddy has been working to bring awareness and new context to this quiltmaking practice.

Siddi is an umbrella term used to refer to people of African descent across Karnataka, Gujarat and Maharashtra states of India. While they have adopted different religions, they consider themselves as Siddi foremost. The kavands transcend and literally bind the community. The women use flattened layers of old, worn clothes traditionally gathered from members of their own households to create them, which subsequently hold cultural and sentimental value.