Exclusive: Conceptual Artist Lakshmi Madhavan Talks About The Art Of Weaving Gender, Identity, And History Into Cloth
Lakshmi Madhavan has collaborated closely with the historic weaving community of Balaramapuram, one of Kerala's oldest handloom regions.
In a world busy buying fast fashion, Lakshmi Madhavan’s relationship with Kasavu textile offers a nuanced narrative in ensembles rooted in heritage, memory, and reclamation. The artist has collaborated closely with the historic weaving community of Balaramapuram, one of Kerala’s oldest handloom regions. Her work focuses on the montage of identity, loss, and reinstitution using the body as a symbolic surface where material, memory, and power intersect. In an exclusive interview with Hauterrfly, Lakshmi Madhavan took us into a heritage process of creating the history that she does with cloth.
Q. Tell us about your love affair with Kasavu?
A. My love affair with Kasavu began as a deeply personal homage to my Ammamma(grandmother in Malayalam). As a visual artist, when I was presented with a curatorial note for an exhibition to explore the idea of home, I knew this had to be about my grandmother. In many ways, she embodied the idea of home and belonging.
After her passing in 2021, I found myself longing for a way to reclaim her memory, the strongest sensorial recall being the whiff of her rice-starched veshti mixed with her sweat mixed with the smells of her kitchen. That longing led me to plunge into a vortex where yards of creation, recognition, and generational history unravelled. The kasavu emerged as an umbilical cord, not just to my own roots but to a larger narrative of heritage, identity, and preservation. What began as a memory has now evolved into an act of meaning-making and cultural reclamation.
Q. What are the characteristics of Kasavu that will attract the new generation?
A. I think the connection to Kasavu for a younger Malayali emerges from how much they know of their own cultural lineage. Kasavu is not simply a cloth for a Malayali, but a cultural object that traverses their lifetime from birth to death. When a child is born, the first cloth that they are wrapped in is a the Kora cotton, (part of the Kasavu textile) and from there, be it a wedding, a funeral, a festival, it is the same white and gold that is used, with only the Kara design (border) changing to signify the ocassion of usage.
As you can see, it is a highly versatile and dynamic textile. The uniqueness combined with the subtlety & sparseness of the gold and white is a very contemporary global aesthetic.
Kasavu holds within its threads a rich tapestry of history, identity, and craftsmanship. For the new generation, it’s not just about wearing a textile, it’s about wearing a story. With the rise of conscious consumption and cultural introspection, I believe the younger generation will resonate with Kasavu’s potential to hold memory, offer transformation, and act as a living, breathing testament to both personal and collective histories.
Q. Help us understand your exhibit and collaboration better
A. As an artist, Kasavu is the key materiality in my work, and I bring forth narratives concerning identity, memory, body, and belonging. I examine complexities that define the politics of cloth and body, delving into the intersectionality of material, socio-cultural hierarchies and gender codes. In my work, the body is traced with craft and cloth, becoming a powerful symbolic surface on which power structures are demarcated and even metaphysical commitments to culture are inscribed.
For me, the Kasavu became an umbilical cord to not only traverse back home, but also to investigate the socio-cultural history & heritage of the cloth. I attempt to reconfigure the Kasavu into a universal cloth, offering the body as a site of redemption & transformation. The works are collaboratively created with the 200-year-old weaving community at Balaramapuram, one of the oldest and original Kasavu weaving centres.
Q. What new flavour did you add to Kasavu?
A. I think it has been an interesting journey to look at Kasavu from the perspective of art, rather than a wearable cloth. As an artist, it has allowed me to reconfigure Kasavu as a cultural and historical object, one that transcends its traditional context and speaks to larger constructs of history, heritage, identity and belonging. I have expanded the narrative of Kasavu to include intersectionality, gender codes, and the politics of memory. My work doesn’t just preserve the weave—it reanimates it. It allows Kasavu to be viewed through a decolonised, critical lens, liberated from the compulsion to appeal to dominant aesthetics. I brought in a new vocabulary of the personal body, the political body, and the weaving body to this timeless textile.
I have also worked on a lot of technical innovations in my artistic practice to think through new ideas, such as thickening the ratio of warp & weft to create new design aesthetics, shadow play, and unique weave patterns.
Q. What are the other Indian handlooms that you wish to work on?
A. I think my core practice will always remain deeply rooted in Kasavu and the Balaramapuram weaving community, yet as an artist, I remain ever open to other Indian handlooms that carry similar layers of generational memory, cultural tension, and tactile storytelling. I am interested in handlooms that are deeply intertwined with identity politics, caste narratives, and community resilience, textiles that are not just beautiful, but vital, lived, and breathing. My interest lies in the stories encoded within them and how they can serve as vessels for collective and individual reclamation.
First Published: May 20, 2025 6:10 PM
