These pieces of art have the power to create an illusion. They bring to mind questions like is it a canvas or a piece of cloth? Is it a thread on the canvas or painted with acrylic paint and a syringe? Clarice Vaz's solo exhibition, 'Ancestral Weave' is so minute that it immediately catches the eye, not just as paintings but as actual pieces of these heritage weaves.
Saligao-based Clarice has been working on these 23 paintings since 2017, however, she has been influenced by the oral traditions of the Kunbi and Gawda tribes since her teenage years. A young woman from the Kunbi tribe used to cook in their home in Moira, who wore these great weaves and narrated their traditional stories.
"Capturing the labour-intensive ‘weave’ of this drape on canvas, this exhibition focuses on creating awareness of the soul of the ‘Kunbi/Gawda’, tribe one of the tribes in the tribal mosaic in Goa. I began painting Kunbi sarees on canvas years ago, those vertical and horizontal strands of thread interlaced at right angles aesthetically forming block patterns were so pleasing to the eyes. When the fabric is worn, the straight lines become curved. Curved lines embracing contours of the body can be a thing of beauty. That caught my attention," says Clarice.
Ancestral Weave Festival 2024 will be held from February 9 to 11, at Sadhana Dell 'Arte, Merces to celebrate the beauty and diversity of Goa's indigenous cultures including visual arts, textiles, music, dance and food. The exhibition is curated by Vivek Menezes while the festival is curated by Esme Lobo of Sadhana Dell 'Arte and Avinash Kumar of Unbox.
What interested Clarice about the traditional weaves was the usage of natural warm earthy colours for dyes. "The whole Kunbi community was actively involved in this process. Some procured the cotton from the forests, while others sourced the dye yielding plants-natural dyes from flowers, fruits, indigo, saffron, roots, berries bark, leaves, wood, fungi. They used iron oxide and rice water too. A few formed the desired coloured thread twisting it into a bobbin. The fibers brought together manually formed a yarn and the fabric eventually created when the horizontal ‘weft’ yarn crosses the vertical ‘warp’ yarn. The creative design is left to the play of experience of the weaver. They worked for long hours- needing precise concentration and physical strength," she explains.
She further adds, "Now on my part, I decided to relive their story and I did a whole lot of work which took me years on canvas and eventually on terracotta pots as well. It was a crazy idea for me to literally painstakingly ‘weave’ these drapes in their warm natural dye colours on canvas but I figured I needed to do this for it was a piece of our culture and our heritage. I kept visualizing the ‘weave’ of these lines, checks and dyes on canvas, all in 3D form. ‘Seeing’ these patterns constantly, helped me realise that I could use my unique syringe painting technique to create these drapes on canvas. I set out to capture their realness, movement and rhythm that now helps me be a part of this ancestral weave story I tell."
Clarice's unique syringe painting technique suited this creativity. She began experimenting, mixing acrylic colour with paste and more to a certain consistency so it can come through the needle/canula. "Too watery and it would not serve the purpose of creating lines and too thick would mean block needles. Loading each colour into a syringe, I began ‘weaving’ thread by thread, recreating the warp and the weft threads with almost precision. Texture has been depicted with paste to give a visual sense of how the dobby border looks like 3D," says Clarice.
On February 9, the exhibition will be opened at 5.30 pm followed by a talk on Goan textiles by Poonam Pandit. The evening will include a indigenous dance performance and a demonstration on the loom. On February 10, Sonia Shirsat will enthrall the audience with her melodious voices from 7 pm onwards followed by a traditional cooking session by Assavri Kulkarni. The concluding day of the festival, February 11 will feature 'Takita-Dha,' a drum circle by Arthur Fernandes with ghumots by Anthony D'Souza.
Throughout the festival, indigenous sarees, heritage books and even snacks prepared by the Kunbi and Gawda tribes will be available.
As an agrarian community, these tribes lived of the land, working long hours in the fields and swaying to their songs. They did everything manually, grinding, weaving, pounding, creating toys and jewelry. Their strong backs created cultivable by the building bunds and khazan lands over years of toiling in the murky waters. Their stories need to be heard and carried forward to the next generation.