Porgai Artisans Association
| Porgai Artisans Association is a society of Lambadi women Artisans, who hand process traditional embroidery designs. ‘Lambadi’ references both the community and their language in which Porgai means ‘pride’. Based in Sittlingi Valley, Dharmapuri, Tamil Nadu, Porgai enables 60 Lambadi women to augment their livelihood through embroidery work. They receive fair wages, which means these women and their families do not have to migrate for work. The Lambadi embroidery vocabulary is part of the shared heritage of ‘Banjara embroidery’ techniques like those from other itinerant communities along the Roma Gypsy trail. Over the decades, as consumption patterns changed, the Tamil Nadu Lambadis’ hand embroidery traditions were lost. Then in 2006, generations after it was last practiced, Neela and Gammi, two senior Lambadi women, began teaching other women what they remembered from their grandmothers. The Porgai Artisans Association, a registered Society, began from there. Porgai has one non-community member, its co-founder Dr. Lalitha Regi, who runs the Tribal Health Initiative (THI) in Sittilingi with her husband Dr. Regi. Dr. Lalitha enlisted patronage from Sangeeta Mahendran of Towards Equal Foundation, and curatorial assistance from Anshu Arora to conduct the art residency that produced first Porgai’s first artworks in 2023. | |
