New Delhi, Aug. 9 -- At the Crafts Museum in New Delhi, three long island tables come into view. They feature an assortment of natural dyes, snatches of fabric and samples of indigenous cotton varieties. On one of the tables, there's an assortment of tools. Usually popular imagination does not go beyond the charkha or the loom in this context. However, there is a wide variety of equipment which has been used for centuries in the processing and weaving of indigenous cotton.

Some of these such as manual ginning tools, sizing brushes and hand winders can be seen in the three-table installation Cotton 0.0. The three-table installation is based on grassroot insights by the likes of Kora Design Collaborative, a design and research practice hea...