CRAFTS OF THE PUNJAB

Carlota Lopez
Nov 26, 2017
2 min read

This weekend, I took the initiative of visiting one of my best friends that lives in Coventry. I am going to be here for the next two days and so far I am astonished with the beauty of this place. He lives next to the Cathedral, a graceful building and it ainda reminds me of Paris.

While he was attending a lecture I tried to discover as much of the city as possible but my favourite part was the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum right beside Coventry University.

There is an exposition (from 20 October 17 to 21 January 18) called CRAFTS OF THE PUNJAB to discover objects from the Victoria & Albert's Museum exceptional South Asian Collection. The admission is free.

This exhibition presents an extensive range of arts and crafts from the Punjab, a state bordering Pakistan.

Remarkably, Punjabi crafts survived the political upheavals that followed Ranjit Singh (the first Sikh maharaha of the Punjab) death in 1839, the two Anglo- Sikh wars, and British Annexation of the kingdom in 1849.

For thousands of years jewellery has played a fundamental role in the cultures of the Indian subcontinent. In the Pujab as elsewhere, it is intimately associated with religion, fortune and wealth.

It was used to mark rituals, like marriage.

In the 19th century innovations were introduced by the Europeans and they started coping Western forms and techniques.

The history of textiles in the Punjab begins with the oldest civilizations on the Indus Valley, where cotton was cultivated as early as 3200 BC.

Cotton remains the fibre of choice in the region for all manner of basic domestic textile goods. Hand- woven cotton has served as the canvas for treasured traditional techniques.

The fine carpets, silks and embroideries produced during their reigns were famous not only across the subcontinent but also the wider world.