A multidisciplinary festival in Spain seeks to answer questions around sustainability with “positive activism”

Started by Madrid-based Kavita Parmar and Marcella Echavarria in 2018, Xtant is a one-of-a-kind festival that strives to bring together craft communities for positive discourse

Sometime in June this year, a film centred around a small community of weavers in Gujarat’s Bhujodi left an audience comprising a small group of multidisciplinary artists in Spain, “spellbound”. “Though the film, The Turban Weavers of Bhujodi, was about this tiny community in India trying to sustain their generational craft, it seemed to have bridged boundaries and appealed to everyone at the screening. The silence was overwhelming even as I tried to soak in the stillness after the film got over,” recounts photographer-filmmaker Gourab Ganguli, who shot the film for Chinar Farooqui of fashion label Injiri.The venue of the screening was a multidisciplinary festival held onthe sun-kissed shores of Mallorca that saw a select group of craftspeople and enthusiasts gather to engage in a cross-cultural exchange–all hinted towards the preservation and sustenance of indigenous crafts from across the world.

Called Xtant, the festival was started by Madrid-based Kavita Parmar and Marcella Echavarria in 2018, who brought together their combined expertise in textile and craft to build a global community of artisans and craft enthusiasts. Since then, Xtant has held many iterations, the last of which was in Mallorca in June 2022.

Participation in this invite-only festival is extended to those from across the globe who work to take their country’s indigenous crafts away from extinction to keep them “extant”. It has seen the likes of Sanjay Garg of Raw Mango, Farooqui of Injiri, Bappaditya Biswas of Byloom and Vankar Vishram Valji, an artisan from Gujarat, participate. A chat with Parmar explained the premise of Xtant.

Addressing questions of provenance

Parmar’s experience of having worked with the sourcing segment for a company in Hong Kong that engaged with the handloom sectors across South Asia led to her falling in love with textiles and the process of making them by hand. Subsequently, this also opened her eyes to the changing demands for fast and machine-made as she witnessed generational crafts headed towards extinction. A fashion entrepreneurship that found Parmar’s line getting stocked at high-end departmental stores across the world made her realise the pressures of demand for cheaper, pret lines. “I had just returned to India and had a moment of epiphany when I realised what I really wanted to do. I took help from my husband who worked in artificial intelligence to create the IOU Project that answered questions of provenance through a bar code. I also started the hashtag #WhoMadeMyClothes to spread awareness amongst the wearers. Once the Rana Plaza disaster happened [in Dhaka] in 2013, I saw the level of awareness starting to shift,” said Parmar.

While she continued to consult with big names such as Nike and Levi’s, she also continued her work with smaller craft communities. “I wanted to create a safe space where we could talk to each other about our frustrations as we worked with artisans and craftspeople to keep the legacy alive. How could we share our experiences? How could we be different? That’s how the idea of Xtant came about,” said Parmar. The first physical edition was held in Mexico in February 2020, which serendipitously coincided with Zona Maco, a Latin American art show. This helped the 40-participant Xtant rake up about 5,000 visitors that year. “Our language was never that of fashion or clothing but that of heritage and art,” said Parmar, talking about the widespread appeal of the festival.

Positive “activism”

“Diversity in fibre is very important for sustainability. Unfortunately, when the fashion industry talks of sustainability, it’s still greenwashing as a possible solution. But that’s a lie. What we need to get back to is diversity of fibre and local production lines. That’s the real sustainability that we have to get back to,” said Parmar as she recalled how talks at Xtant focused on problem-solving. A craft market also helped artisans travelling for this festival make profits by selling their wares. “As a participant put it, it was the perfect mix of a TED Talk, Burning Man and a village fair,” laughs Parmar.

Cross-cultural exchanges such as an indigo artisan from India speaking to the best indigo craftsman from Japan were what drove Parmar and co-founder Echavarria to make sure that there was a physical edition this year. With help from the Mallorcan government that wanted to pivot tourism towards culture, this year’s Xtant festival was held at the Museum of Modern Art, along with an art exhibit with site-specific pieces and a 10-day educational programme. “The story being sold is that the more you sell, the more successful you are. We wanted to change this narrative. The future lies in slow and shared processes. We wanted to put together activism in a positive way–activism is an act of acting,” signs off Parmar.

Also Read: Why do we love to hate Indian celebrities at the Cannes Film Festival?

Also Read: Run by local weavers, Kutch-based studio Jeevan Indigo is an ode to the beauty of indigo

Also Read: This rural design studio is inspired by the landscape and heritage of Kutch