Costumes and Crafts of Awadh is a visual documentation project covering the sartorial and craft traditions of Lucknow, published on Google Arts and Culture. I made these photographs alongside a curatorial team that gathered garments, objects, and oral histories from families across the city over 3 years.
The collection moves through costumes: farshi pyjamas, ghararas, lehnghas, achkans, saris, dupattas worked in chikankari and zardozi. Many of the garments are over a hundred years old, held by families across generations. The embellishments survive even where the base cloth has grown fragile. I stayed close to the objects: the naqqashi, the gota work, the muqaish, the detail that makes Lucknow workmanship what it is.
The crafts section covers practitioners still working in the old city's lanes. Block printers, embroiderers, silver workers, weavers. I went into the workshops and shops where the work actually happens.
The full collection is on Google Arts and Culture under Lucknow Bioscope.
