This Creative Culture Talk revisits the mutually shared heritage and the craft connection between India and the Netherlands by different perspectives. We are curious to unpack how artistic collaborations look like in the modern day and how artists find inspiration when working with different craft forms in intercultural contexts. This talk also explores the extent to which handmade and artisanal craft contribute to the conversations around cultural, social and environmental sustainability. By raising questions around different forms of transnationalism, Master artisan Sufiyan Khatri also discusses the ‘Ajrakh story’ and how it is to deal with “craft tourists” who visit him to learn more about the craft. We discuss how Dutch designers curate the aesthetic for the European markets on their repeated trips to India drawing in-roads into topics such as intercultural business, trust and community building.

The guests include Lipika Bansal who is an artistic researcher, and the founder of the Textiel Factorij in Amsterdam who actively works on creating sustained creative collaborations between India and the Netherlands, facilitating cross-cultural exchanges. Merunisha Moonilal supports the discussion with her in-depth analysis of sustainability in textile design and fashion. With her work as a sustainability coordinator at Amsterdam Fashion Institute, she engages in conversations surrounding cultural appropriation vs appreciation, and what the two mean in an evolving context. Manuel Klappe is a curator and co-founder of artists initative KAFANA.