I — The Voyage and a Quest Dubbed Sacred
In 1927, Tagore sailed to Java and Bali on a pilgrimage to Asia's ancient roots, as a nation-in-waiting searched for its cultural self.
presentsWeavers Studio Resource Centre presents
Sarong to Sari
— Exhibition —
An exhibition tracing how batik crossed the Bay of Bengal from the courts of Java to the studios of Santiniketan, carried by Rabindranath Tagore's 1927 voyage.
- Thursday, 21 January to
Wednesday, 31 March 2027at Kolkata Centre for Creativity, Kolkata, India - Saturday, 24 January to Sunday, 4 April 2027at Arthshila, Santiniketan, India
- Monday, 25 January to Friday, 26 February 2027at Nandan Museum, Visva-Bharati,
Santiniketan, India
Snippets
From Sarong to Sari
A century since
Tagore’s voyage
In 1927 Rabindranath Tagore travelled to the Indonesian islands of Java and Bali. On his return to Santiniketan, he introduced batik, Javanese court dances, and a cycle of agrarian festivals modelled on Balinese ritual. The year 2027 marks the centenary of that visit.
For Tagore, art and culture were how people of different backgrounds could meet and understand one another. Visva-Bharati was founded on the idea of a place "where the world makes a home in a single nest", and he was especially drawn to building a pan-Asian alliance through living cultural traditions. In his lifetime, Santiniketan welcomed artists from Indonesia, Japan, Burma and China.
Sarong to Sari takes the batik technique as its thread. Brought from Java to Santiniketan in 1927, batik soon grew into a distinct Bengali tradition and remains the clearest surviving expression of Tagore's vision of pan-Asian exchange. The exhibition and its programmes bring batik practitioners from several countries together, and invite a wider audience to consider what Tagore's ideas still offer today.
“I found myself at home in the heart of a rich atmosphere of beauty wafting from the land of my ancestors, and the two great cultures were linked in my own life.”
The exhibition
four sections
The exhibition unfolds across four galleries from the Javanese world of batik, through Tagore's vision and its reinvention at Kala Bhavana, to the lived tradition of Santiniketan and its unfinished life today.
II — The Encounter and the Reckoning
In Java, Tagore finds a culture wholly its own yet resonant with India, where Batik layers technique, symbolism and identity in cloth.
III — Transplanting the Source Material
Transformation & Collectivity
At Santiniketan, wax-resist technique mingled with Alpona, Ajanta and rural Bengal, and a new vocabulary travelled from Kala Bhavana and Karu Sangha into homes and celebrations.
IV — The Pilgrim's Truth
Cultural Reconciliation and Humanism
Nearly a century on, Batik is a shared inheritance, proof that traditions live through encounter, and a prompt to imagine a more connected future.
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Exhibition Opening
and Book Launch
Inauguration of Sarong to Sari exhibition and book,
followed by a cultural presentation.
Kolkata Centre for Creativity (KCC), Kolkata
Opening & Book Launch on Thursday, 21 January, 2027
Exhibition continues till 31 March 2027 in Kolkata
Meet the team
Darshan Shah
Project Director
Founder Trustee, Weavers Studio Resource Centre, Kolkata, India
Dr. Maria Wronska-Friend
Co-curator
Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, James Cook University in Cairns, Australia
Sushobhan Adhikary
Co-curator
Artist, Art historian, former curator of Kala Bhavana Museum, Santiniketan, India
Peter Lee
Project Mentor
Independent Curator, founding curator of the NUS Baba House, Singapore
Oroon Das
Exhibition designer
Multidisciplinary artist, performer, scenographer, and designer, India
Subham China
Co-curator
PhD at the Department of International Relations, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India
Kavita N. Patel
Assistant project director
Assistant Project Director, Weavers Studio Resource Centre, Kolkata, India
Sarong to Sari
Partners
Presented by
Presenting partner
Supported by
In collaboration with
Venue partners
Testimonials & Press
Textiles from Bengal: A Shared Legacy
I still find myself pouring over the cover illustration. It is such a wonderful collection of boats against a frieze of wonderfully mixed architecture.
