Matriarch blanket

The Matriarch Blanket
Created for ‘Wrapped in History: A Collection of Elephant Blankets for the Great Elephant Migration’, curated by Vikram Goyal

While Odisha may be the ‘land of artists’, it is also home to one of India’s largest elephant populations. They have long-held symbolic and cultural significance - appearing in ancient stone carvings, textiles, scripture and oral histories. This blanket carries shared stories of forest and fabric, people and elephants - resting gently on the back of a creature who carries far more than her own weight. Created through months of collaboration with artisans, it brought together textile and craft traditions from across Odisha:

- Sambalpuri ikat silk
- Khandua single ikat silk from Nuapatna
- Bomkai handloom, with woven jala designs
- Kotpad handloom, in shades of madder extracted from the local aal tree
- Dhokra, an ancient indigenous metal craft sculpted using the lost-wax technique
- Pipli appliqué, layered fabric in vibrant colours - used to this day as canopies for chariots during Rath Yatra
- Kapdaganda, hand-embroidered by women of the Dongria Kondh community with colours and motifs representing mountains and harvest

Dimensions: 87” (W) X 161” (L)