Gujarat: Finnish researcher spends the lockdown in Kutch learning quilting

AHMEDABAD: While many may have felt intensely bored in the lockdown, some have used the time to learn new skills to satisfy their creative urge. An academician from Finland, who is spending her time under this lockdown at a farmhouse in a small village near Mundra in Kutch, has gained proficiency in quilting.
Marjaana Jauhola is a senior lecturer in development studies at the University of Helsinki. For the past couple of years, this ethnographer has been studying the changes the society in Kutch has recorded in the aftermath of the 2001 killer quake.Like many, she too has fallen for Kutch’s handicrafts. Being an ethnographer, it’s the quilting the way it is done in Kutch that has fascinated her. For her, quilting is nothing short of an “alternative history writing”. She said, “In research and women’s activism worldwide, there is an interest for such ‘archives’ as they tell a lot about women’s lives, dreams and lived experiences.”
Jauhola stays in Bhuj town for her research, but because of the lockdown she shifted to Zarpara village near Mundra. She and her co-researcher Shyam Gadhvi had to cancel their plans of surveys, but they are writing up the research now. Jauhola also keeps herself busy with the distant academic work for the campus in Helsinki. But at other times she focuses on quilting, learning mostly from Gadhvi’s mother, Aashbai.
On quilting, Jauhola said, “I am learning the quilting method used in the Zarpara village, but more widely as a way to learn about co-creation and collaborative ways of working because quilts are done often by several women.” She went on to say: “Quilts carry many stories as the materials are usually reused clothes. It connects generations within one family. We, I and Shyam Gadhavi are also using quilting as a metaphor for collaborative ways of working. We also held a workshop on this subject in Helsinki in February.”