The material of this series is khadi fabric. The term khadi refers to handspun and hand-woven natural fiber cloth made traditionally in India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. Because the production process is manual, khadi fabric differs significantly from industrially produced textiles.

In my photographs, each fabric is portrayed as an all-over image. Compared with my earlier works, the established figure-ground relation has shifted. The two different levels of object and ground have merged in the cloths. Here they function at the same time as surface and object, more obviously where creases and wrinkles caused by storage become part of the works’ composition. The tones of color and abstract patterns evoke associations with paintings. The illusion of the presence of the actual material is kept in the photographic image. What seems like a documentary approach is – as in my earlier works – a game with one’s own perception. Instead of purely documenting, I seek an image with a life of its own.

Natascha Borowsky

In November 2017, Salon Verlag, Cologne, published the artist book khadi, with an essay by the German writer and poet Norbert Hummelt and a poem by the 15th-century North Indian mystic, poet, and weaver Kabir.