OTHER IMAGININGS 
Curated by Aaron Sinift, Jitendra Kumar and Kahkashan Khan

A book made of hand-woven cloth with printed text and illustrations, created during 2013-2016 to honor Mohandas Gandhi and the locally produced khadi cloth he made and wore as a symbol of Indian self-reliance and independence. Woodblock and silkscreen-printed on home-spun khadi by Sri Gandhi Ashram, Akbarpur; The Chinmoyee Kala Niketan, Varanasi; Nandita Devraj/Rudraksh, Jaipur; with original weavings by Kala Aur Katha, Orissa; and Firoz Ansar, Varanasi. These workers who make the homespun cotton khadi cloth are primarily women who are often the sole support for their families. Each thread is spun by hand, requiring concentration and thousands of hours of work. Color separations and silkscreen images were mostly traced by hand (not photo-transferred), all woodblocks were cut and printed by hand. There are almost no mechanical processes used to produce this book. The collaboration on the book was entirely via email communications between Aaron Sinift in USA, and by Jitendra Kumar & Kahkashan Khan in Varanasi, India where it was produced, with additional guidance from Mr. Vijay Kumar Handa of the Gandhi Hindustani Sahitya Sabha, New Delhi.

OTHER IMAGININGS is a collaborative work of art as seva (service) honoring Gandhi’s living legacy in India through the medium of homespun/handloom khadi cloth. Gandhi championed khadi in his lifetime as a means of  providing self-sufficiency to India’s poorest and most vulnerable. 

The book is an experiment in Gandhian economics to create a swadeshi work of art as a global and ethical construct in service to all participants. Such a project would be impossible without the guidance and support of  Gandhian elders such as Mr. Vijay Kumar Handa of New Delhi. The collaboration was conducted entirely via email between three primary partners: Jitendra Kumar & Kahkashan Khan in India and Aaron Sinift in the USA between Feb. 2013-Oct. 2016. 

The project was curated around the artworks produced by Gandhian sarvodaya (universal uplift) workers in India during the 60s-90s, along with artworks by contemporary artists from India and around the world. The project is designed as a social architecture which equalizes all participants and is structured to benefit primary participants through allocation of finished copies of OTHER IMAGININGS (given to/or sold on their behalf).

This book represents the hand labor of hundreds of  people; farmers, hand spinners and weavers to produce 1400 meters of khadi cloth, plus block cutters and printers, screen printers, tailors and book binders, and artists. Our work is designed as a resource for students, scholars and  activists, and is offered in gratitude to the efforts of sarvodaya workers worldwide.