It’s A Blue World

“Bhasha Chakrabarti dances with Indigo and divulges its secrets. Truth be told, we are all touched by the color as it proliferates the interstices of South x South ecologies. While its etymology identifies Indigo as a “product of India,” the history of the blue dye is globalized — major 18th century Indigo plantations were found in India and the American South, forging a commercial entanglement between the so-called “old world” and “new world” orchestrated by the profiteering colonial metropole in Europe.

Chakrabarti represents these globalized histories of indigo and overlapping imperial cartographies in It’s a Blue World by threading ancient and colonial era Indigo trade routes on a global map. This side of the quilt uses patches of fabric dyed using indigo species and techniques from around the world. There are patches of Adire textiles throughout the quilt that parallel the Adire textiles made by Nigerian women on view throughout this gallery. 

Since 2020, Chakrabarti has been spending time in Gee’s Bend, Alabama, learning from and quilting with China Pettway, Mary Ann Pettway, and numerous other esteemed quilters. One side of the quilt uses discarded blue jeans, iconically associated with both indigo production and resistance in the USA, and draws from the vocabulary of the Gee’s Bend quilters. The denim used is from the artist’s collection of old jeans, a nod to not only practices of bricolage that Gee’s Bend quilters are known for, but also an homage to the revolutionary history of indigo, especially the 1739 Stono Rebellion in South Carolina and the 1859 Nil Bidroho (Indigo Revolts) in Bengal.

In tracing the transnational history of this blue pigment and dye on quilted fabric, Chakrabarti affirms that that mapmaking and quiltmaking are worldmaking endeavors.”