Ekta Kaul

Making Design Circular with Katie Treggiden

Can mending and repair be used as self care? How can the traditions we’ve studied impact our current actions towards sustainability? Are we too disconnected from our past? What drives the culture of mending?

On today’s episode, I’m talking to Ekta Kaul, an award-winning London based artist. Her artistic practice is focused on creating narrative maps that explore places, history and belonging through stitch. A pared back aesthetic coupled with a considered use of graphic marks and lines form the core elements of her work. These are underpinned by a thoughtful approach to making with meaning, a deep interest in heritage and a firm commitment to sustainability.

We discuss:

- What role mending and repair can play in mental health and self-care.

- Her time both at the National Institute of Design in India and her MA in Edinburgh.

- Portrait of Place and why maps interest her so much.

- Her forthcoming book about kantha coming out in Spring/Summer 2023.

- How she learned from her mother and grandmother, and how traditional skills can be modernized.

… and more!

Here are some highlights.

Mending as an act of emotional repair

“I feel that it is also an act of emotional repair. Sewing is so much related to catharsis and this idea of emotional repair for me, particularly within my own practice, this is something that I have come to realize, and I'm kind of reflecting more and more on this. When I am working with stitch, I am instantly connected to my mother, and I'm instantly connected to my grandmother and although they are not here in this world, it just feels that I'm sort of honoring their presence of what they handed down to me.”

Stitching makes meditation accessible

“It is about finding joy in creativity. It is about finding that space, a meditative space where all your worries begin to melt away and you're just focused on the journey that your needle is taking on the cloth. And really, I feel stitching makes meditation so accessible. This idea that sitting down for 20 minutes and listening to an app or focusing on our breathing, I know I do it and I find it so hard as do many people. But I feel that the cloth, the intimacy of the cloth there is something about that, and just this act of holding a needle and making a very simple line can help us access that state so very easily. And also it has a tremendous impact on our sense of well being.”

Teaching our children traditional skills

“I also feel that there is the need to be teaching our children and young people how to mend things, and I imagine that the national curriculum should have a module on that and how they can fix the things that they use every day. And also, I feel that there’s much to be learned from the wisdom of ancient cultures, which at the moment, we have somehow, almost like an amnesia, has happened since the industrial revolution that everything done before that was somehow not right. Or could be improved upon. I'm not against progress, but what I'm saying is that we can re-imagine tradition in contemporary ways. We can apply that wisdom to today's problems.”

Connect with Ekta Kaul here.

Follow Ekta on Instagram here.

About Katie Treggiden

Katie Treggiden is a purpose-driven journalist, author, podcaster and keynote speaker championing a circular approach to design – because Planet Earth needs better stories. With 20 years' experience in the creative industries, she regularly contributes to publications such as The Guardian, Crafts Magazine, Design Milk and Monocle24. Following research during her recent Masters at the University of Oxford, she is currently exploring the question ‘can craft save the world?’ through an emerging body of work that includes her fifth book, Wasted: When Trash Becomes Treasure (Ludion, 2020), and this podcast.

You can find Katie on Instagram @katietreggiden.1, sign up for her e-newsletter here and if you’re a designer-maker interested in becoming more sustainable, sign up for her free Facebook Group here. If you’d like to support more fantastic content like this, you can buy Katie a ‘virtual coffee’ here in exchange for behind the scenes content and a shout-out in Season Three.