Geetanjali Prasad, Yarn of Labour, weaving, discarded yarn, traditional Indian Gamcha fabric and photographs printed on paper, 250 x 300 cm, 2026. Installation image, Courtesy of the artist, Gallery Blaker Skanse Norway.

Close-up image

Composed work comes together as a weaving collage offering an insight into the layered realities of material, labor, and the wounded landscape within the globalized textile industry. Textile is both the subject and the material of this work, though not in its conventional form.

The work is woven from discarded yarns, shredded strips of my own photographs, and fragments of gamcha which is thin, vibrant cotton towels traditionally used by the working class across South Asia. I source the gamcha directly from a weaving village in Bangladesh, a community slowly being erased by the relentless march of power looms. For the laborer, this fabric is purely utilitarian: cheap, quick to dry, and hardy. For me, it is a textile archive of sweat and endurance.