Politics Of Dress Is Unpicked, One Layer At A Time

Volume IV: Truths, Half-Truths, Half-Lies, Lies is an exhibition that unravels the subtle yet deeply political ways in which clothing continues to shape, contain, and communicate identity. Kolkata-based Kallol Datta explains how the clothes are entangled in structures of power, obedience, and resistance.

Dutta seeks inspiration for the art a few years back when he was encountered, Lessons for Women, a nearly 2,000-year-old text authored by Ban Zhao, the first recorded female historian in Chinese history

“Ban Zhao’s text, while ancient, wouldn’t seem out of place at a political rally or an op-ed today, in any part of the world. Researching on historical social codes, dress codes, and behavioural codes it was apparent how they have informed and influenced contemporary social norms and laws of the land,” Datta says.

Building on this provocation, Volume IV unfolds across four conceptual ‘truth-states’—Truths Our Clothes Told Us, Half-Truths Our Clothes Told Us, Half-Lies Our Clothes Told Us, and Lies Our Clothes Told Us.

Each chapter functions as both archive and inquiry, inviting viewers to examine how garments have historically functioned as both tools of expression and instruments of regulation.

“Clothing edicts have never existed in a vacuum. The politics of the body have always been aligned with the constrictions of public and private lives experienced by gender and sexual minorities. Even today we see how an item of clothing and the codes around it impact access to education, personal safety, and approaches to employment. Basic human rights one would think,” Datta explains.

The fabrics used in Volume IV, which are donated, second-hand, and reclaimed, are chosen precisely because they arrive with histories embedded in their folds. They carry traces of previous wear, of use, of care, of invisibility.

All the works were produced in collaboration with Ek Tara Creates, a Kolkata-based social enterprise that supports women artisans. Here, slowness is not a delay but a deliberate methodology—a refusal to participate in fashion’s accelerating churn. Through these pieces, Datta cultivates a counter-rhythm, privileging process over product, memory over novelty.

“The project and by extension the solo position themselves as a series of creative and critical interventions through living textile archives - navigating the public and the private, the historical and the contemporary. The division of the project into chapters allowed for a deliberate, reflective process of reimagining, unlearning, and challenging dominant histories,” he says.