The Handloom Doesn’t Need to Be Frozen in Time
Preserving a craft should not mean preserving every limitation of its tools.
I have spent years working with handloom and handicraft communities—designing products, developing markets, documenting processes and, increasingly, looking at the tools themselves.
One question has stayed with me: why do we expect the textile to evolve, but not the loom?
Weavers are expected to respond to changing markets, create new products, experiment with colours and patterns, improve quality and compete with industrial production. Yet the technology available to many of them has changed remarkably little.
We often celebrate this as tradition.
I am not sure we should.
Preserving knowledge, not difficulty
There is enormous intelligence embedded in a handloom: tension, rhythm, coordination, material knowledge and an understanding of structure developed over generations. I do not want technology to replace that knowledge or remove the hand of the maker.
But I also don’t believe physical difficulty is what makes a craft authentic.
If a change in a loom reduces repetitive movement, improves ergonomics or makes complex weaving easier, does that make the resulting textile less handmade?
For me, the distinction lies elsewhere.
The knowledge of the weaver is worth preserving. Every limitation of the tool is not. Tradition has always contained technology
What we call a “traditional” loom is itself the result of centuries of invention.
The flying shuttle transformed weaving. The Jacquard mechanism changed how patterns could be produced. Dobby systems, treadles and new shedding mechanisms altered what individual weavers could accomplish.
At some point, each was new technology.
Yet today, conversations around craft can become strangely suspicious of technological intervention. We risk treating a particular moment in the evolution of a tool as its permanent, authentic form.
I find that idea limiting.
What digital fabrication changes
My own relationship with loom design changed when I began working in Fab Labs.
CNC milling, laser cutting, 3D printing, electronics and open-source design introduced another possibility. Instead of thinking about a loom as a machine manufactured somewhere else and purchased as a finished object, I could think of it as a system of parts that could be made, repaired, modified and shared.
That thinking eventually led to Indira Loom.
The project began with a simple ambition: to make a compact, digitally fabricated loom using as few components as possible. The early versions were small and portable. Later experiments explored electronics and the idea of a “smart loom”.
But the project has changed as I have changed.
Today, I am less interested in making the loom smart for the sake of technology. I am more interested in making it a better loom.
Can it fold? Can foot treadles reduce the work required from the hands? Can parts be fabricated locally? Can someone repair or modify it without depending on a manufacturer? Can digital tools extend the weaver’s capabilities without taking control away from them?
These are now the questions guiding the next Indira Loom.
A tool should be allowed to evolve
I don’t see technology and tradition as opposites.
The question is who the technology serves.
If technology removes the maker entirely, we may lose something valuable. But if it reduces unnecessary labour, expands creative possibilities and gives makers greater control over their tools, I see that as part of the continuing history of craft.
We do not have to choose between preserving the handloom and changing it.
Perhaps changing it is one way of keeping it alive.
