At 1 p.m., PGHW members and members of the public are invited to join us on Zoom for an artist’s talk with Anitha N. Reddy:
Stitching Stories: Collaborative Quilt Making with Siddi Women – Anitha N. Reddy
Stitching Stories explores a decade-long collaborative practice between artist, textile curator, and historian Anitha N Reddy and women from Siddi communities in North Karnataka. The presentation foregrounds quilts not merely as crafted objects, but as layered repositories of lived experience, memory, and agency.
Working with repurposed textiles—worn saris, shirts, and everyday cloth—the women create complex, intuitive compositions that merge abstraction with narrative. These quilts emerge from daily life, carrying personal and familial histories within their fabric. Without formal training, the makers develop distinct visual languages, transforming necessity into expression.
The session situates this practice within broader social contexts. While quilting is regionally prevalent, Siddi women have adapted and reshaped the form, possibly in response to exclusion within existing craft hierarchies. The result is a unique quilting vocabulary rooted in both circumstance and creativity.
Central to this work is a collaborative methodology built over time through trust, dialogue, and adaptation. Anitha’s role is not prescriptive but facilitative—providing materials, creating enabling environments, and working alongside the women. Each quilt is credited to its maker, with authorship and recognition forming a critical part of the process.
The presentation also reflects on questions of mobility, visibility, and empowerment. From village-based making to workshops, exhibitions, and residencies, the women’s engagement with new contexts reshapes both their self-perception and community narratives. These experiences, in turn, feed back into the quilts, extending their storytelling capacity.
At its core, Stitching Stories examines how collaborative art practices can function as sites of agency—where material, memory, and identity intersect, and where recognition becomes a catalyst for continuity across generations.
Artist’s Bio
Anitha N. Reddy is a trained artist whose practice extends across textile art, curation, and historical research. Her work engages deeply with community-based collaborations, particularly with Siddi women in North Karnataka, with whom she has worked for over a decade.
Positioned at the intersection of art, craft, and social practice, her approach emphasizes process over prescription. She works closely with makers, facilitating environments where individual expression can emerge organically through material engagement. Her projects foreground authorship, ensuring that each maker is recognized and credited for her work.
Anitha’s practice explores textiles as carriers of memory and lived experience, often working with reclaimed materials that hold personal and cultural histories. Through exhibitions, workshops, and residencies, she has expanded the visibility of collaborative textile practices while fostering dialogue between rural and urban contexts.
Her work continues to investigate how art can operate as a tool for agency, recognition, and the re-framing of marginalized narratives.
Please visit the artist’s website for more info.