My name is Sufiyan Ismail Khatri and 34 years old. I belong to Khatri Muslim community and live in Ajrakhpur Village in Bhuj city, of Kutch district, India. My family has been practicing the Ajrakh Natural dye and hand-block printed craft for the last 10 generations.

As a child I grew up watching my family involved with Natural dyeing & Ajrakh art. I took up the craft when I was 14 years old. At that time, the market was very limited due to limitations in designs. The reason being, for many centuries, the block-print artisans have been using the same complex Islamic motifs developed centuries ago. It was unthinkable to consider anything apart from these traditional designs. The designers can only choose from available designs/color.

And with the advent of screen printing there has been a steady decline in Ajrakh in terms of market & the number of artisans taking up this craft.

My interest was to foster design collaborations and attract the designers from around the world to work with the Ajrakh craft. I started introducing new color combinations & collaborating with designers to develop new block designs and patterns suitable to their market needs.

The aim is to spread the Ajrakh art to newer markets and inspire more artisans to take up the craft. With only 7 artisans involved in our folk art a decade ago, today we are working with about 140 craftsmen of printers and dyers.

Today on one hand I get to work with many established names like Cloth House, Pero, Andrew Wells, Simon Marks, House of Anita Dongre, Brass Tacks, Divya Seth, Mimbres, Christa Michel, Katherine Watson, Maiwa, Lisa Hall, Nimai Nitai etc.. This helps to maintain the production.

On the other hand I also work closely with students, researchers, artists from varied backgrounds - I have been collaborating with the textile students of New South Wales University, Australia for the last 5 years; as part of the Textiles Factories project, Netherlands I work with artists from different backgrounds like Tattoo artists, Graphic designers, Space designers etc., where we combine our skills to come up with interesting art pieces. This brings in freshness and new innovative ideas to the craft.

I feel a fine balance between production (business) and innovation is important to sustain the craft.