About
To preserve and promote the traditional arts of Kutch by making them culturally and economically viable, empowering artisans as designers of their own work.
Kala Raksha is a pioneering non-profit craft trust based at Sumrasar Sheikh village near Bhuj in Kutch, Gujarat, founded in the early 1990s to preserve and promote the region's rich traditions of embroidery, patchwork and applique. Conceived with the participation of artisans, community members and experts in art, design and museums, it works with around a thousand embroiderers from several ethnic communities across dozens of villages, specialising in Suf, Rabari and Jat embroidery, and runs a small museum and shop where the majority of the sale price goes directly to the artisans, who also help design and price the work.
Kala Raksha began in 1991 as a project with a small group of embroiderers in Sumrasar Sheikh and was established as a trust in 1993, co-founded by the American textile scholar and Ashoka Fellow Judy Frater, who lived in Kutch for three decades. In 2005 its education initiative became Kala Raksha Vidhyalaya, the first institution of design created specifically for traditional artisans, offering a year-long course that helped weavers and embroiderers innovate within their own traditions and reach contemporary markets. The model has trained many of Kutch's leading artisan-designers and influenced craft education across India.
Kala Raksha is one of the most important craft institutions in India, a pioneer of artisan-led craft preservation and of design education for traditional artisans, central to the revival of Kutch's textile heritage.
[Atlas Perspective] Profiled as an Institution (Operator) in the Crafts field. Kala Raksha connects to Kutch embroidery and textile traditions and to the artisan communities that practise them, and pioneered design education for artisans through Kala Raksha Vidhyalaya.