Current Activities and Services

Please click on our Calender and Upcoming events link in the left corner to get current details and specific updates.

Learning, documentation and writing initiatives

We are always developing material to create online articles, gallery features, publications for children and other useful resources related to art, ecology and social justice. Please watch for updates, as we hope to be featuring new materials on this site frequently. We also love to hear your feedback on these projects. We aim to be able to publish print versions in the near future, so that the material will also be accesible off-line. We are currently seeking funding for this venture.

Partnering with artisans and farmers

Twine currently collaborates with small-scale producer groups through design consultation, skill sharing, learning and awareness initiatives and serving as a bridge from the maker to the market. We do this through networking, creative media, home parties, events, and festivals. In addition, we hope to connect with business people and others who would want to work with these producers directly in a committed fair trade manner in the long term. Currently we are working primarily with natural material and textile artisans and cooperatives based in North India. Please contact us if you are interested in learning more about these fair trade products and the people who produce them.

Special Events

We are planning several events for the fall including free workshops, field trips, exhibitions, screenings, presentations and a fundraiser. Please check our calender for updates.

Trip to India/ goals of trip

Currently Amy and Sherwin are planning to travel to India in order to use their is skills for several short-term projects that fulfill a long-term vision. We are in the process of gathering funds and saving money to make this happen.

Goals of India Trip

  1. To learn first hand about cotton issues in India, the related root causes of the crisis among farmers and to create a documentary about the lives of cotton farmers in Punjab, their communities and those involved with them.
  2. Screen documentary footage and organize discussion groups within communities of textile design students around the country in order to better inform them of the human face behind the raw material that they may work with. Help to sensitize people to what is happening with cotton.
  3. Network with organic cotton farmers and NGO’s in order to connect their fiber with artisans and others that would like to create organic products with it. Network and build friendships with artists, artisans and farmers to encourage the integration of art, ecology and social justice.
  4. Assist co-operatives and NGO’s with income generating and art related projects. We will do this through skill sharing, workshops, design, marketing assistance, networking and connection building to ethical sources of raw materials. The skills that we are equipped to share includes: natural dye, weaving, papermaking, greywater systems, vermicomposting, natural balms and more.
  1. Create photo-biography books for children about people whose livelihood or lifestyle involves cultural tradition and biodiversity. We hope to inspire future generations to embrace connection and stewardship with nature and humanity.

The purpose of creating this documentary:

  1. We seek to create a documentary that would respond to the growing crisis surrounding cotton growth and specifically within rural Punjab in which record numbers of farmers have committed suicide, widows struggle to support the surviving family members, large groups of people are faced with a cancer and health issues related to agri-chemicals and traditional farming methods have been nearly lost. The low economic price to farmers their families and the ecological degradation of Punjab has reached a state of emergency.
  2. We want to create a documentary that gives a multi faceted portrayal of this devastating problem. We seek to explore the root causes of this problem and it’s relationship to other societal and ecolocal issues. We hope to use the documentary to explore human and natural interconnection and the positive efforts that can and are being made to heal the land and the farming communities of Punjab. We also want to explore how others can support that important healing process through our own choices.
  3. We intend to connect and to listen to the stories of various people involved with cotton. We aim to amplify the voices of farmers, and their families as well as those trying to make a difference in this region, through capturing their stories on film. In addition we hope connect ethical cotton to textile producers we know, who want to use a healthy and just material and question the conventional manner of consumption of this important fiber, produced by another human being on a farm.
  1. Most importantly, we aim to produce this documentary in order to inspire change.

What we can do directly to support farmers and their families is very limited in the scope of the problem, and we hope that this documentary can have a ripple effect to inspire people we may not even know. We believe that getting the stories out there can draw people towards action and contribute to creating lasting change.

To learn more about the farming situation in Punjab please visit the Twine online gallery to see the feature on Kheti Virasat Mission, a community based environmental NGO in Punjab and the writing of director, Umendra Dutt.

Also you can listen to the radio interview with Vandana Shiva from Democracy Now: LINK