Anant Sutra

In thinking about the storytelling for my collection, I was drawn to how different cultures respond to impermanence. In Japan, mono no aware describes the bittersweet awareness of transience—the beauty of cherry blossoms precisely because they fall. In India, I find a parallel in the concept of anitya, the idea that all things are impermanent, as well as in rasa theory, where emotions like śṛṅgāra (love, beauty) and karuṇa (pathos, compassion) arise from the fleeting nature of life and love. Even ritual practices like rangoli or flower garlands embody this, creating beauty that is meant to fade. Bringing these together, my project uses tataki zome to capture a transient moment in nature and aari/zardozi embroidery to transform that fragility into something enduring—an echo of how cultures across the world seek to hold onto what is fleeting through art, ritual, and adornment.

This collection weaves together the quiet impermanence of Japanese tataki zome and the ornate permanence of Indian aari and zardozi embroidery. Flowers, once fragile and fleeting, are pounded into cloth to leave behind ghostly imprints—ephemeral traces of nature’s passing seasons. These impressions are then preserved and transformed through intricate beadwork and metallic threads, echoing the grandeur of Indian ceremonial textiles.

By layering two crafts from different cultures, the work tells a story of memory and transformation: what fades in nature is remembered in thread. It reflects both meditation and celebration, transience and legacy, reminding us how textiles carry beauty across time, place, and generations.