Bridge Bharat and Padma Shri Lalita Vakil Present ‘Fields of Chamba,’ A Research-Led Chamba Rumal Series Rooted in Himalayan Botanical Memory
New Delhi, India: Bridge Bharat has unveiled Fields of Chamba, a year-long research-led series of Chamba Rumals developed through archival study, botanical mapping, and original studio-authored design in collaboration with Padma Shri Lalita Vakil and her atelier of master women artisans in Himachal Pradesh.
The collection reinterprets the historic Chamba Rumal tradition through a deeply localized botanical vocabulary inspired by the Chamba Valley’s native flowering shrubs, sacred trees, seasonal flora, and wild creepers. Drawn from the artisans’ lived environment, the motifs reflect forms encountered in daily life — along temple paths, agricultural fields, and forest edges — transforming ecological memory into collectible textile art.
The project began with extensive documentation and analysis of historic Chamba Rumals, focusing on their stitch structures, compositional rhythm, and vegetal motifs. Bridge Bharat expanded this study through academic research into Himalayan flora, ultimately developing a series of original drawings specifically designed for the technically demanding double-sided embroidery that defines the Chamba Rumal tradition.
Executed over more than 1,000 hours by 13 master women artisans, the collection represents a significant convergence of heritage craftsmanship, research methodology, and contemporary textile innovation.
One of the defining material developments in Fields of Chamba is the use of handwoven Bengal muslin, a fabric considerably finer and more delicate than the cotton traditionally associated with the art form. Its translucent quality enhances the visual depth of the embroidery while increasing the technical complexity of execution, as every thread movement remains visible and irreversible.
The resulting works possess a light-responsive quality in which the imagery appears suspended within the cloth, positioning the Rumal not only as a cultural textile but also as a display-oriented collectible artwork suited to contemporary interiors and museum-grade contexts.
While deeply rooted in the geography of the Himalayan valley, the collection also speaks to a broader global discourse surrounding place-based knowledge, fragile ecologies, and material authorship in collectible design. The botanical forms embedded in the works function as visual ecological records, carrying both cultural and geographic provenance.
Historically associated with the Pahari visual tradition, Chamba’s flora has long symbolized devotion, seasonality, and sacred landscape. In Fields of Chamba, these motifs evolve into a contemporary ecological archive, allowing the textile to operate simultaneously as cultural object, artistic document, and time-based record.
“In Fields of Chamba, the archive, the landscape, and the artisan’s lived experience come together,” said Aakanksha Singh, Founder of Bridge Bharat. “By developing original compositions through rigorous research and translating them through a discipline that demands extraordinary precision, we are extending the language of the Rumal while creating sustained, high-value work for the artisans who hold its technical knowledge.”
Conceived as part of Bridge Bharat’s long-term vision to build a global platform for India’s heritage art practices, the series establishes a model where research, design authorship, material innovation, and generational craftsmanship function as a unified ecosystem.
With Fields of Chamba, Bridge Bharat and Padma Shri Lalita Vakil position the Chamba Rumal within the international category of collectible textile art — bridging heritage, ecology, and contemporary design through a distinctly Indian lens.
