Savneet revisits Indo-Pak partition in her woven works…
by admin
As a part of our “What’s on Your Loom” Series, we feature the woven works of Chicago-based fiber artist Savneet Tawar. Her latest project titled “Batwara”, explores, as an act of repair, the relationship between fragments of family history, cultural memory, and historical archives. Talwar tells us more…
Works…
बटवारा (Batwara): Archive Remnants
Focusing on the photo archives of the 1947 India-Pakistan partition, I collaged popular photographs and maps to explore how archives inscribe bodies and memory. I am interested in the contradictions of archival matters – what and who is worthy of being a subject of discourse. What colonial narratives and images continue to define the experiences of the global south through archives? How do archives become a space for grief and remembering? In essence, I am interested in the messiness of archives and the feelings evoked in grappling and engaging with them. Repetition, whether though hand sewing stitch-by-stitch or the repeated throwing of the shuttle on the jacquard loom, becomes a process of remembering and witnessing. The slow emergence of the images in the weaving process represents silence, giving way to stories and images that have been passed down through generations.
बटवारा (Batwara): Archive Remnants 2025
The project (Picture above) continues my exploration of the shifting perspectives of borders, remembering and repair. In November 2024, I was preparing to give a paper at the American Studies Conference in Baltimore on my 2024 Batwara series and my meditations on archives and memory. Through my research, I came across an article by Patrick French “The brutal ‘Great Migration’ that followed India’s independence and partition,” only to discover that the image buried in the back of my mind, had in reality been staged by the photographer Margret Bourke-White for Life magazine. Bourke-White’s online archive has the contact sheet and the cropped image of the man carrying his wife on his shoulders. Lee Eitingon, the reporter on assignment with the photographer, wrote in her notes that it took hours for Bourke –White to get the seemingly spontaneous shot of the human caravan. The contact sheet raises questions about the politics of emotions and how the colonial archives become a “contact space” for alternative readings re-inscribing memory and history. As a meditation on remembering, I wove Bourke-White’s contact sheet during my Lottozero residency (2025) in Prato, Italy.
To shift the perspective on the politics of borders and boundaries, I choose to weave an aerial view of the India-Pakistan border of the crooked Radcliff Line.
बटवारा (Batwara): Archive Remnants 2024
In August 1947, after 300 years of rule, the British left India, leaving it partitioned into two nation states, Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. My paternal and maternal ancestral homes in the Punjab were abandoned and my families came to India as refugees. In one of the largest migrations in history, over fourteen million people crossed an arbitrary border, the Radcliff Line, drawn by British cartographer Cyril Radcliff. The forced mass migration resulted in the deaths of over two million people.
About…
Savneet Tawar is a Chicago-based American Studies scholar, fiber artist, educator, art therapist and somatic coach. She is currently a faculty member at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the art therapy and fiber and material studies departments. As an interdisciplinary fiber and feminist artist, her work exists at the intersection of archives, memory, language, feminists politics and questions of resistance. She is interested in the contradictions of feminist and archival matters – what and who is worthy of being a subject of discourse? What colonial narratives and images continue to define matters of the global south? Her practice explores needle methodologies to engage in stitching and mending as an act of slow activism. As an educator and scholar, she teaches her students the about the materiality of textiles that can be used to foster and strengthen community, create social bonds and raise awareness about social and political issues to advocate for social change. Her passion for fiber arts has led to various community based projects such as the Wandering Uterus Project that uses the fiber arts to create dialogue about reproductive justice. She was the founder of CEW (Creatively Empowered Women) Design Studio that served Bosnian and South Asian immigrant women. The studio provided sewing, knitting, crocheting and art sessions to increase life skills and cultivate a shared sense of belonging. Her most recent project is the Mending Lab that explores mending and repair as a powerful metaphor for storytelling, activism, grief, remembering and healing.
Savneet will be at the Kranj Textile BIEN 2025 from 31.05 – 14.08 : LINK
Links…
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