The sari had come a long way. It had been tenderly hand carried from Kolkata to Delhi to Doha to Berlin to New York before it got to the studio of my artist friend Benigna Chilla in Chatham New York.
BC1: it was so deteriorated, you know, and I said, well, how am I going to use it?
A bright yellow silk sari with little red and green birds. It was my mother’s. My grandmother had given it to her when she was a young bride, pregnant with my sister. A long time ago.
MOTHER: Oi toh bollam 1956. 56
My mother had worn it. My sister had worn it. Now it was falling apart. So we gave it to Benigna. In December Benigna Chilla’s solo show Absolutist Approaches opened at the Nature Morte gallery in New Delhi and I got to see what she had done with my mother’s sari.
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata.
The piece, about 36 inches by 60, was yellow like the sari. Dyed using turmeric. And saffron.
BC2: : The color was actually dictated by your mom's sari. You know. So it was this very bright, um, yellow.
The sari had fallen apart. But Benigna had saved bits of it. Like the border. But she turned it over.
BC3: it’s the reverse side. So it, um, which is much more beautiful actually, because you can see all the threads
The little red and green birds that once woven all over the sari were laminated on to the canvas
BC4: I actually try to save all the birds
Very carefully
BC5: And then I cut them all out, which was quite a bit of time. And sometimes it would whip into this little birds because it was already so fragile.
Then she had an idea.
BC6:And I also felt like I should integrate something from my mother into the piece.
She found her mothers curtains also from the 50s from Germany.
BC7: You don’t why you are saving things. with the move from like Europe to
the United States, I took things with me which have actually no value. So part of it was my mother's curtains. Um, and they had this, like, flowery, uh, designs.
She used that lace like a stencil,
BC8: This is this is, uh, crocheted, but it's like it's I use it as a stencil. So what I do is I print right onto, the canvas,
A museum would have tried to preserve what was left of the fabric. But as an artist Benigna actually embraced the deterioration.
BC9: I actually liked that it was falling apart. It was taking on a different life
She sees beauty where most of us see only decay.
BC10: And I used to photograph things like this, like things on the beach or like leaves that are decaying. I love to look at flowers that are on the way out. Um, because there was a different kind of beauty to it, not just in terms of color, um, but also the way they become more organic. Not just put into a vase.
Thus two women one in Europe one in India, who had never met in life, came together in a piece of American art.
BC11: it came in a very organic way to put the two things together
But Benigna was nervous about what my mother would think of what she had done to her sari. My mother could not travel to Delhi for the show so Benigna came to Kolkata to give her a small piece using bits of her sari and her mother’s lace.
It was the first time the two women had met.
MOTHER_BC1: it's marvelous. Just. I'm honored. That's what I can say. Well, I was honored that. You really felt so overwhelmed about it, so I was. No, I really I wasn't sure, you know, since I didn't really know you. Youknow? Nobody honored my sari like that before.
And as I stood in the gallery I saw neither my mother’s sari. Nor Benigna’s mother’s lace curtain. Or nostalgia for either. Instead I saw faith that disintegration does not have to be the end of the story.
It can be the beginning of a resurrection. And the little birds in the folds of my mother’s sari had been set free to fly again.
MOTHER_BC2: the other hand, it was also, you know, destroying something and like, resurrecting really. Admiring my saris, I did. Thank you, I did thank you.
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata for KALW