SCIENCE CONTAINER – TRANSCRIPT CONVERSATION

 

LINDA LOPPA

Dear Suket, dear Armando, I was thinking this morning that Florence was a kind of a link between you. Armando, you came in 2015 to Florence for the IFFTI conference. You did an installation in Santa Croce, in that beautiful church. And then a year later, I think it was 2016, you Suket came as a participant in the Woolmark Prize, actually, you won. Great moments for us in Florence, for both of you. I thought it was interesting to bring you together because you are both working on textiles, not only textiles, but it’s also a link in your life, I guess. Suket, you’re a designer and Armando is an artist, teacher, weaver, designer. Armando, please tell me more about yourself. Who are you and how is your life going to be, because a big change is coming on.

 

ARMANDO CHANT

That’s a really interesting question. Actually, I’ve really found it hard, my entire life, to define and I answer in many ways, because I am trained in textiles, I am trained in weaving. But whilst I was training in weaving, I was always reaching out to other disciplines. So, I love photography, I love printing and drawing. And then, after my studies, my Master degree, I’ve done costume design, I’ve done art direction, and in my own practice, I’ve covered photography, film, as well as installations. So, in terms of trying to define what I actually do, I find it very hard. I suppose, in many ways I like to think. And I think, when I was at university I realized that at the core I’m a creative person. And as a creative person, you can apply your aesthetic. You can apply your ideas; you can apply your skills to a diversity of different areas and industries and creative avenues. And that’s really, I think, at the core of what I suppose I believe in, and which has allowed me to reach out and work with different people and collaborate with different people and I feel I’ve got the ability to do that.

 

LINDA LOPPA

That’s really the advantage of who we are. Me too I did so many different things in my life, but that’s because we are creative and we have a very creative person here in front of us. Suket, how is your life for the moment? He’s a fashion designer, can you imagine but he’s more than that, he is a kind of, come on, define yourself, Suket.

 

SUKET DHIR

I think Armando you’re doing a great job and I sort of felt like I was speaking for a moment. I have the same thing. In one of the e-mails you wrote you said, send me a bio. And I just pulled out one of the bios that one of my team had written and I showed it to Asha. You remember Asha, Linda, my mentor. So, I showed it to her and she said, kid, those are the reasons why you won the award, these are all the things people know you for, but who are you? And I guess that’s an existential question. I don’t even know who I am. I don’t even think I began to answer that question yet. But, it’s a good place to begin with because, I think, your email started that journey already. The last three, four days, I’ve actually been thinking about that and I started taking notes. I’ve started writing things down and I think I might end up doing something, that I never thought or imagined doing. I am not much of a reader. I’m more of a visual person. But I might end up writing a book, who knows. 

 

I’m in a bit of a discovery, sort of a zone. I am many, many things. And none of those are things that I imagined while I was growing up. I thought I was a singer and then it turned out that I was a fashion designer and it turned out that I’m good at textiles. And then it turned out I might be really good at art direction, and then it turned out I might be good at, I don’t know, anything you start or end up with, something interesting to develop. 

 

LINDA LOPPA

That you would be a good father with two nice kids.

 

SUKET DHIR

Yeah, here he is. That’s my son. He’s doing his school on Zoom, just like we are doing ours on Zoom. So, he just came because he does not have the password of the iPad, so he needs my thumb for that. So, but yes, I’m not in any dilemma. I think we have many, many, many things it’s very, very difficult to sort of find a box to put us in, especially the people like us, Armando and I, and yourself as well Linda. You’ve had your experience with many things and you like doing many things at the same time, not just one. And I think, putting it on people or just sort of trying to figure it out in a couple of sentences. I’d say that I’m just a bit of a seeker. We love so many things and I want to do all those things and be in the moment all of my life I think, and then end up learning a lot about myself and the world around us. Just that – I think so.

 

LINDA LOPPA

I was thinking that digital events, are important for the weavers because we see a kind of cliché of the industry and weaving. Instead, there is so much technique and we can make it tridimensional as Armando does. And I think the digital will help us to bring a level of perception because it’s a very indoor research, hidden activity. We have to bring it to the world, in order that people can become interested in it, by seeing it, by doing it, by experiencing it. And that’s probably the next step to take in this new world that we’re living in. Armando, do you think the world will change a little bit?

 

ARMANDO CHANT

I think that the world will change a lot, actually. And it’s really interesting what you’re saying. Because I think there are two sides of the coin which regards this. One is how the digital, and all these avenues that we have to convey knowledge digitally, will help us understand the richness and creativity that there is in this world. And, in many ways, to preserve and encourage that further. It will enable us to really understand what we actually have at this point in time and not take it for granted. Which is, I think, in many ways what we did. On the other side of that though, which I found very interesting is, my work was in an exhibition which is now traveling around Australia. And what I felt was, obviously with COVID-19, the exhibition couldn’t open in its opening venue. So, it was online and in the second venue, luckily, we’ve managed to open the exhibition. What I found is that textiles are such a tactile thing. There’s such an embedded knowledge within making, that the experience of the work, the people who were able to experience it in real life, that’s when you have a real emotional and physical connection to the action, an imaginative connection to the work itself. I think it’s interesting going forward to think of two sides of that coin. How we can spread knowledge through digital means and educate through digital means. But also, how can we experience the item, the textile, the artistic work and still retain that physical sense as well. That’s where you have the emotional connection to the world.

 

LINDA LOPPA

Suket I’m sure you agree. Tell us a bit more about your work. How do you work with Khadi and the passion for that fabric?

 

SUKET DHIR

I’d like to resonate exactly what Armando just said. I’ve been struggling for the last eight years to sort of communicate what I do with photos and a visual media. Even the stories that I tell in person, about the clothes and the reasons for doing certain things in terms of details, in terms of weaving, in terms of prints, in terms of embroideries or finishing, those are stories behind stories behind stories.

And that was also the aspect of layering, I was actually talking about it earlier. It’s not like layering when you actually sort of see a shirt and then there’s a jacket, and then there’s an overcoat, a coat. Not that; layers and layers, when it comes to thinking. And layers and layers when it comes to processes as well. And it’s very difficult to sort of communicate that online. It’s a bit of a challenge, and that’s the thing that I have taken upon myself to sort of figure out how to do that. But while we are doing that, we decided this year, moving away from textiles a little bit. Because again, textiles, I realized that I’m a little more besides textiles, because there’s a whole narrative to the prints that we do, the storytelling. I spoke to you Linda, about the Maharajas, translating a traditional miniature painting, and reimagining what those Maharajas would be doing today instead of hunting, which they used to do back in the days, about many hundred years back. Now, they’d be playing golf. And so, what we’ve done is that we kept the aesthetic, a 400 years old aesthetic of the miniatures, but when you go up close, you’ll realize that instead of hunting, they’re actually are playing golf on golf carts. You see the Segway’s, you see the women under the trees, you see them as if they’re reaching out for apples or fruit, but when you go up close, there are not reaching out for an apple, but it’s a phone, they’re taking selfies. And so, I used these prints on top of the Khadi handwoven fabrics. And specifically, even within the handwoven field, I like to weave fabrics that are impossible to weave with machines. You know, there are so many fabrics that are now possible to weave with the mills and the power looms. 

Now, it’s very, very important for us to sort of focus our energy onto fabrics that are impossible to be woven with machines. So that the efforts are still relevant because I think machines and power looms are very, very important, they’re here to stay and they’re necessary. We are seven plus billion people on the planet, so we do need machines. And, even the looms and the mills, the machines are also man-made, people have made them. So, even it might be done by engineers, but then it’s the genius of the engineers to actually come up with solutions to deal with the exploding population. So, I think it’s also a miracle of modern society. But at the same time, it’s very, very important for us to sort of focus on our traditional means that have been done for the last 1,000, 1,500, 2,000 years. And update those forward. And, it’s very important for us to pick and choose the weaves that are relevant, the weaves that still cannot be managed by machines. Pick those weaves, and then celebrate them to the world. Like the Japanese, they have been doing an amazing job. They come to India, to Indian weavers, they get the fabrics made in India that cannot be done by machines. And what we can look at is how we use the digital medium and the modern technology to facilitate those fabrics and also create demand for excellent weaves. 

Now, what is actually happening is that a lot of emotional blackmailing happens within that industry. “Oh, it’s handwoven, you must buy it”. No, you should buy it because it’s excellent. It’s amazing. It’s handwoven, but it kind of looks better than a machine. That’s how accurate it is, you know what I mean? So, the focus goes on, you guilt trip people into “Oh, it’s handwoven made by a poor weaver. You must spend money so that their livelihood stays alive.” I think their livelihood should stay alive because they are good at what they do. Not because of the mediocre product might produce every once in a while. So, everyone should be encouraged to do better and better and better work. And that’s all of our responsibility. I mean, because we’ve been focusing on poverty, not weaving. If we focus on their weaving, they don’t remain poor. So, I think that’s the more important thing that needs to be done.

 

ARMANDO CHANT

Just to give an example, I follow a lot of hand weavers on Instagram and I was liking the posts and stuff, and one of them is an Ikat weaver and they were very lovely. They reached out to me and said, thank you. And one of the things that I thought that was very interesting is that I struck up this conversation and they actually asked me, they said, do you know anything about colour printers? And I was like, well, I don’t really know that much, but I can find out for you. And I was like, well, what do you need to know? And the reason why they were asking after colour printers is, they wanted a larger format colour printer so that they could print out larger Ikat designs and experiment on the printer before they actually then apply their obviously inherent, embodied knowledge. So, they want you to visualize the design prior to actually going forward. Which I thought was a really lovely use of technology to expand their work.

 

SUKET DHIR

Absolutely. And that’s the introduction of new technology that I’m talking about. I saw this movie a long time ago on fashion, was it “Dior and I” where Raf Simons has done something interesting; he had translated a painting, he printed it on the yarn and then he has woven it; it was printed before the weaving? So, it automatically gives that glitch effect in the end, which is what Ikat is. Now the whole thing about Ikat is that its hand dyed; I think it’d be interesting to see how we’d work with digital printers and if it is digital printing, see what happen on the warp and the weft, and then we weave it together and then see what kind of magic happens with what can come out of it. It’d be very interesting to see that actually.

 

LINDA LOPPA

I think we have already a lot of ideas for the future. But how is it going to work within a fashion industry, that we are a little bit hating at the moment? How can we find a new rhythm in the local and be also in the globalization of our products? We need to reach more and more people, not because we want to become more and more known, but because we can do more when we reach more people. Because we have a bigger industry and we can produce better and we can have more products and experiment more. So how are we going to resolve that slow and fast duality, Armando?

 

ARMANDO CHANT

That’s a really huge question. I agree with you. I think, in many ways, actually, this is the core to answering that question in terms of connecting people, of collaboration and also of recognizing value. So, the reason why something is expensive is because it has a level of ingenuity, of intelligence, of embodied creativity and knowledge embedded within it. And it’s one of those things, which I think we have actually got to the point where people expect more things quicker and they also expect things to be cheaper. It’s almost like a process of re-education of both the industry and the consumer, and we need both on board. One cannot exist without the other. So, we definitely need to, I believe, get to a point where we can educate or bring the consumer into a world of knowledge. Whereby they can understand where, what they are buying comes from. Whereby if they are paying, let’s say, $200 for something, the reason it is that amount is because of X, Y, and Z. If they’re paying less, it’s also because of the same. And I think, it’s one of those things of almost, how do you say? It’s about dogs chasing their tail, whereby you’re always going to be running around in circles if you’re chasing the new all the time. Whereas, you need to just, like you say Linda, not necessarily stop. But maybe just slow down slightly or pause. So that we can take more time to appreciate the things that we’re actually producing and making, rather than always striving for the new.

 

SUKET DHIR

Linda, you know, I’ve been thinking about this very subject for a long, long, long time. And, in fact my whole existence is based on answering this question and I’m somewhere there now. I think, a lot of those hurdles surfaced with the Woolmark win, you know, that kind of win can give you the credibility to have a say in the larger context in the industry. But as a young designer without international recognition, this becomes a little more difficult. You are too tiny to actually have that kind of an impact. What I think is that the slow and fast have to complement each other and I’m called a slow fashion designer, because fast fashion exists. So, I sort of owe my existence to fast fashion. I can’t really wish fast fashion away! And there’s a need for fast fashion. I mean, when I was young, I remember, I think when I was about 20 years old, I wanted to experiment and figure out what my style was. So, I wanted to change things, wear new things, and I did not necessarily have enough money at that time to sort of spend responsibly. Now what actually needs to happen is a parallel thing. There are two, three, four things that need to happen simultaneously, because that’s how life also is. My wife and I, we decided to have kids five years later than we should have. Because we thought that “Oh, let me settle down and then we’ll have the babies”, career-wise. But the thing is, we never settled down. Everything has happened simultaneously. I have the babies and I’m still settling down. So, the thing is we wanted to have them. You can start, you have to start in parallel. You have to start all of those things together and you have to focus on all those things together. Even though we want the world to slow down, in my lifetime, I don’t have time to slow down. I’ll have to work even faster. I want to enjoy my life and have a pace and take it easy. But the thing is that there’s so much work cut out for us. There’s so much responsibility for the world to slow down, we’ll have to become faster. Which means, what I’m actually saying is, and plus we have to lead by example, we need to actually do it. I will continue doing in a very small way what my brand does and make clothes. 

 

If we have to lead the world, for example, a person like me can collaborate with a largest scale brand. And that’s when the two people collide and with them, we can actually find solutions where they can make their billions. But hopefully with my help or with my expertise, we’ll be able to find solutions where they can make their billions and without surrendering too much space or surrendering too much profit. Because profit, I don’t think is a bad thing. Profit is a good thing. Because with the profits you can do even better things. They do need to make their millions and billions. But at the same time, how can we collaborate and come up with capsules that can actually capture youngster’s imagination at large? And they are encouraged to generally buy more responsible products. And when they see it happening, that all the responsible products also made a lot of money, then they can actually start converting the rest of their lines also towards responsible fashion. 

 

But it could be responsible, fast fashion. What’s wrong with that? You know, you can actually have things, new designs coming up every six months. But those products should last long. Those products should stay in your wardrobe. Those productions should be able to be passed on from one person to another. Like in India, we have a whole ecosystem where if I wear something, I’ll give it to my siblings or I’ll give it to someone who is in need. So those clothes I will wear for a season or two, and then somebody else will wear it, somebody else will wear it, until it kind of turns into of torn and tattered cloth. And that is also used to dust at home. And this is 1.3 billion people practicing this as you and I speak. So, this is a country where it is practiced en masse. It’s traditional, it’s our heritage. This is how we’ve grown up. So, you know, when it comes to India, we might be sort of lacking when it comes to civic sense. But when it just comes to naturally working with nature, preserving nature, being less wasteful, that’s something that is there in our DNA. 

 

And I think that it can actually be a big example. For example, Armando collaborates with a billion-dollar company to actually come up with a capsule collection and that becomes a big hit where Armando also thought of the youngsters, wannabe youngsters and he’s made things that’ll last long. But in the end be very relevant for them. And they buy it, and they make their money and they’ll be like, “hey, well, we need to actually do more of this”.

 

ARMANDO CHANT

I love this idea that you mentioned Suket as well. Because I believe in it really strongly – in this idea of the ecosystem. How everyone is connected and have the choices you make impact others, but you can spread the benefit beyond just you. So much of the design world, the art world, the creative world is based on a sole designer or a name or a brand or one of those things. But what is the impact of that brand? How can they reach out beyond the name and actually have a beneficial impact to communities worldwide as well?

 

LINDA LOPPA

So, we are going to do projects and events and digital events. I want a project; I’m definitely looking forward to something already.

 

SUKET DHIR

I was actually thinking about that, Linda. I wanted to basically give a commitment today that I would love to do something with Armando and you. But I think we need to have another conversation to actually sort it out and figure out what. I have a habit of promising more than I can chew sometimes. So, I don’t want to say what I want to do, but I will give my commitment that I want to do something amazing and something meaningful. And hopefully something that can be scaled. Because I think scale is something which eludes both him and me. And if we can actually do somethings and collaborate with some brand who can actually sort of… I am thinking out loud…It could be not even scale, but scale is another thing that we can look at and see how we can actually have a mass impact of our efforts. I mean, it could just be an installation, but something that kind of goes viral. But we need to have a bigger impact than we can imagine basically. So, this is the commitment I’d like to give.

 

LINDA LOPPA

We are in the 11 Containers. So, Suket made me happy because number 11 is a lucky number.

 

SUKET DHIR

It is! In traditional Indian thought, anything that ends with a number one, like if it’s 11, 21, 101, 1001, it’s supposed to be an auspicious, a good number. Because it’s a beginning. It signifies a beginning of something not the end of something. Like zero is the finishing. It’s like a whole number 100, it’s the end of something. Whereas 101 is the beginning of a new series. So, 11 is like that. It’s like a beginning of something. So that’s why I told her that it’s supposed to be a very good number.

 

ARMANDO CHANT

I’m really hoping 2021 will be the start of something good. Let’s celebrate that!

 

LINDA LOPPA

Write it on your wall, we all write it on the wall!

 

ARMANDO CHANT

Suket inspired me with the 1 analogy. I’m like 2021 is the one for all these exciting projects.

 

SUKET DHIR

Well, honestly, I think 2020 it’s been one of my favourite year so far. I’m not talking about in terms of misery and mayhem. Obviously, I’m sad about that. It’s unfortunate. But I think it’s one of those impossible years. You have the whole year to yourself, that has gone by like that, in a snap of a finger, it’s just gone. And so much time for ourselves, so many things we could do. So many things we could rethink and just kind of ponder over. And I just realized, I calculated three or four days back, you know Linda, I was saying that I’ve volunteered to distribute meals and food to the poor during that time. We’ve just calculated, it was 2.5 million meals that we distributed from just one unit, from just one centre of food packing, that we had. So that was something that, I didn’t even realize that so much work we were able to do in just those five to six weeks. It’s a big number. I mean, I don’t even know. These are the things that you put in the right situation; these kinds of things happen through you. And that’s when you realize that you can do much bigger things with your life. And that’s what we expect, what this is about, something amazing.

 

LINDA LOPPA 

But many people changed, Armando, you stopped your educational chapter. I see many people and I talk to many people and many are changing job, taking decisions, see their lives differently. I guess it’s something really, really special. So, Armando, you’re going to be more an artist?

 

ARMANDO CHANT

Yes, I’ve had a wonderful career in academia, which I’m very proud of. And, I was reflecting the other day and I was thinking of all the wonderful students who I’ve worked with and who are now out there doing wonderful things. But at the same time, I thought, well, now it’s actually time for you. And now, you get to a point, I feel as a creative practitioner, when you need space, and you need time to actually focus back on yourself as well. And 2021 is that time, the start time for me for that. And, ideally yes, returning to my creative practice and my artistic practice and focusing on that. And, I already started reaching out, to be honest with you, to artisans in India as well, to see if there’s a possibility of working with them, to create things and to work on new things together. So, it’s an exciting time. It’s a very exciting time and it’s full of possibilities, which is what I love. So, yes, it’s great.

 

SUKET DHIR

But in terms of any help you need with the artisans in India, if you need me anywhere, even translating a sentence, anything you need just let me know, give me a call.

 

ARMANDO CHANT

I was actually talking recently to a gallerist and showed her my work and she really loved the embroidery work, which I had created with an artisan in India. And I was saying to her that the first opportunity I get, I will be on a flight to India to hopefully do a residency or spend some time there to work with people there.

 

SUKET DHIR

If you’re coming to Delhi, then my home is open to you. You’ll have a room for yourself.

 

LINDA LOPPA

Wow, it’s all about friendship guys, it’s not about textiles, it’s about friendship!

 

SUKET DHIR

See – the digital world opens up to the possibilities of creating those bonds. And I think, I guess, Armando is similar. I can actually guess that from the way we’ve been speaking. I think things are more about relationships. Someone was asking me, “who would you like to work with in the US?” I said, well, I’d like to meet the owner of a shop first and then meet their team. I just want to know what was their thoughts behind opening a damn shop in the first place, and then maybe decide whether I want to be there or not. You know, there is space for just no-nonsense work, like cut, cut, cut, cut. But I also think it’s important for us to build human connections and get out of the shells and meet new people, more people. And get to know them, why they do what they do and why they are crazy for time management. They’re so robotic. Just to get to know those, maybe learn from them, get influenced by them and maybe influence them a little bit. Just kind of balance the whole world in that way. 

So, I think digitally, like you said, even for weavers, they should get access to all kinds of people who appreciate excellence and not mediocrity. Because I think that’s the problem. My India’s problem is that. There’s been a huge amount of celebration of mediocrity for far too long. Excellent, excellent people with excellent minds and excellent skills. They need to be directed into the direction where they can actually follow excellence and not just be okay with it. And we should get into the detail of this in the next conversation that we have.

 

LINDA LOPPA

Wonderful. Thank you for this wonderful conversation. I was really sure that it was going to happen. Thank you, Armando, thank you Suket. Have a nice day and see you soon.