Developed by Lakshmi Madhavan in collaboration with Aravind Jayan, T.Sudharkaran, Sukumaran Nair, Biju, Kumar B from the weaving community of Balaramapuram.

In i remember it from my womb, Madhavan addresses her long-standing interest in questions of identity, body and belonging through the traditional weave of kasavu. The work foregrounds the complexities that define the politics of cloth and the body, delving into the intersectionality of material, socio-cultural structures, and gender codes. The body turns into a powerful symbolic surface on which hierarchies are demarcated and even metaphysical commitments to culture are inscribed.

Lakshmi imagines this work as a response to a story narrated by her master weaver where he said “i know how to weave from my mother’s womb.” Lakshmi questions whether the kasavu textile can em-“body” the history that went into its making. The focus is on the distant yet integral relationship between the bodies who wear the kasavu and the bodies that weave them. The ‘wearing’ body carries the privilege of the textile while negating the weaving body. The work brings agency and presence back to the weaver’s body by invoking the foetal form onto the kasavu textile highlighting the umbilical relationship between the kasavu textile and the bodies that make them.