Tania Salman's Art and Design Studio

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 Having always avoided textile because of its utilitarian pressure as a material, and facing similar pressure throughout my life I began to empathise with the fabric as I purposefully chose to confront the context of such a pressure, we put ourselves through to attain being 'of worth,' and I explore this through the art making process of painting with watercolour and stitching threads. The exploration process is a narrative that calls into question the utilitarian worth of textiles/humans and what it means to 'be'. The fabric is painted with washable material and stitching threads that are painted loosely using “Kachay Tankay” to challenge ideas of permanence, perfection, and worth.

Kacha means raw or unrefined while tanka means stitch. Kacha Tanka is actually an embroidery technique in South Asia which denotes a running or chain stitch and is presented as a traditional rustic design method of embroidery but here i have taken the name literally as i make stitches using the threads in a raw way to show impermanence and making connection with it to our mortality, impermanence and fragile existence as humans. We come into this world raw and attach ourselves with social constructs and societal pressure to be of use to society yet at each moment we are imperfect and we always will be no matter how strong we make a strong hold our existence is fragile and although ever changing we are holding on to this life by the threads.