Ahuja runs a non-profit organisation, Conserve, in Delhi. Established in 1998, she collects discarded plastic bags found on the Delhi streets and transforms them into textiles by compressing them with heat. These textiles are then fashioned into bags and other accessories. Though her work comprises textile construction, the re-use of found materials relates to the use of off-cuts of paper I use to create my pattern designs. In addition to this many of her fabrics are formed into simple striped patterns using the different colour plastic bags.
Though it is her use of alternative technology and re-use of materials that interests me in her work, her textiles and fashion accessories are a by-product of the main aim of her organisation, which has environmental and social concerns at its core. Environmentally, she makes use of waste and helps to deal with the huge amount of rubbish dumped on Delhi’s streets everyday; but uses this project to provide work and valuable income for the poorest people in Delhi, the ‘rag-pickers’ - the lowest caste in Indian society. By employing these people to collect rubbish for her, and to help making her designs, she is able to provide these people with a little money for food, healthcare and education.
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