Traveling Patterns

Aditi Jain, Ruchi Shah, Verena Gerlach, Henning Wagenbreth

Patterns are made up of repeated icons that suggest their meaning. They feature in the graphic arts and are used decoratively, or as elements that tell a story. Diverse ways of pattern-making have endured in India, and this book takes inspiration from one of them: the remarkable tradition of block-printed patterns on cloth.

Travelling Patterns is a unique visual assemblage—in which pattern-making travels from textile to paper, from the decorative to the narrative, and from one context to another. A celebration of print-making in various forms, the book has been letter-pressed on handmade paper. The cloth cover—hand printed using wooden blocks—pays homage to the traditional blocks from which the artists drew their inspiration.