Biography
Varsha Manglam is an artist and PhD student at Lancaster University. Her research centers on postcolonial critiques of new materialism with a particular focus on alternative sensibilities toward the contemporary ecological crisis. She explores material dialogues as pathways for reconnecting with nature, drawing on both artistic practice and theoretical inquiry.
Paper Abstract
This paper investigates how material knowledge emerging from Indigenous, centuries-old art practices can guide us toward more just and sustainable futures. Focusing on the ancient South Asian printmaking technique dabu resist, it examines how such practices can decolonize Western new materialist discourse and open ecological pathways for contemporary art practice.
Dabu resist, a mud-based and environmentally gentle process, predates the industrial global trade in chintz and embodies a profound relationality with soil, water, and local ecologies. As an Indigenous art practice, it exceeds Western theoretical formulations of vibrant matter and relational ontology by offering a lived, land-rooted understanding of material agency. Drawing on new materialist theories and engaging in hands-on experimentation with the dabu-resist technique in a contemporary art context, I examine how this practice operates not only as a form of art but as a material philosophy—one that challenges extractive modernity and aligns with ecological art practices. Through this lens, dabu resist becomes a site for reimagining materiality beyond dominant theoretical models.
By creating contemporary reinterpretations of chintz through dabu resist, the study demonstrates how returning to ancestral, place-based methods can generate emerging roots for new forms of artistic and material thinking. This materially grounded practice offers a decolonial alternative to abstract theoretical models and suggests that what we need conceptually, ethically, and ecologically – may indeed be right below our feet.