A thread stretching between memory and possibility, the evening at Delhi’s Travancore Palace in November found its meaning in quiet movement. Not loud, nor declarative, but unfolding like the gentle unfurling of fabric. Through installations conceived within the larger arc of 'Heritage in Motion', Tilfi created a world where craft spoke not as a tradition frozen in time, but as a living, breathing continuum.
Across the design installations, the pulse of Banaras appeared in measured, reinterpreted gestures. The Shikargah universe, once a vocabulary rooted in royal hunt scenes, did not simply reproduce its past grandeur. Instead, it opened into a soft forestscape across textile and repoussé metal art: leopards reclining under stylised canopies, deer poised mid-movement, foliage arranged in rhythm and stillness. Here, the language shifts its regality to reveal its wilderness, calm, and tenderness. Emerging wholly not as an homage or reinvention alone, but as a negotiation between the two.
Further on, the Linen and Silk-Wool compositions opened into a softer registry. Banarasi craft traditions breathed differently here – its calmness emerging without insistence. Light geometry, floral motifs, textured patterns, and a muted palette invited touch rather than demanding attention.
And then there was Antinomy, where experiment and structure folded into form. Twill weaves shaped into gentle arcs and contours, surfaces that seemed to shift with your movement. The installation settled into an understated architecture of cloth, suggesting innovation – a silent proposition, made in warp and weft.
Together, these installations composed a spatial narrative, not a linear story but a layered terrain. Sikhargah, Linen, Silk-Wool, Antinomy, and the Bridal display inspired by Ragmala paintings, each spoke a distinct dialect but a shared language. Of reverence, intention, and possibility across textiles. Guests moved not from piece to piece but through atmospheres: drifting, pausing to absorb. In that slow journey, craft revealed itself in phases of memory, contemplation and anticipation.
Staged along the steps and open courtyard of Travancore Palace, the dance performance was realised through concept and installation design by Howareyoufeeling.studio, choreography by Keelaka Dance Company led by Aneesha Grover, and performed by Nandita Kalaan, Amrita Sivakumar, Benjamin Jacob and Joe Mathew. It also mirrored this landscape of contrasts and possibilities. Draped in Tilfi’s Shikargah sarees, the four dancers shifted between traditional lines and discernible animal energies. In their slow, studied movements, the resolve of the hunter and the fleeting vulnerability of prey were revealed. Across this shifting tension, the choreography echoed the dualities within Tilfi’s own material innovations – structure and softness, heritage and reinterpretation.
Heritage was presented as a terrain to be explored, shaped by time, reinterpreted by hand. Living beyond a past that deems itself as fixed. The exhibition did not try to resolve the tension between past and future; it allowed them to coexist. In doing so, it opened a space for questions: What does Banarasi craft become when freed from expectation? At Travancore Palace, Tilfi did not merely showcase cloth but worlds where Banaras’ legacy became a horizon, not a boundary.
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