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Carpet People of India Photographies by Adrian Moser		Adrian Moser Pressebüro Moser von Graffenried Zentralstrasse 93 2503 Biel Switzerland Mobile +41 (0)79 215 36 45 Phone +41 (0)32 322 27 78 Fax +41 (0)32 322 27 79 moserphoto@bluewin.ch HOMEPAGE ADRIAN MOSER HOME BIOGRAPHY	ADHIKARA CONTEMPORARY ART GALLERY CONTACT CAPRIASCA ADHIKARA - BOOKS ADHIKARA - LIVRES ADHIKARA - BÜCHER ADHIKARA - LIBRI

Another cold morning dawns on Station Road, the main street of Bhadohi. But soon the temperature will reach up to 40 degrees celsius	Morning Break at the Elementary School for girls in Bhadohi. Uttar Pradesh is one of the most densely populated districts of India, a fact which is definitely reflected by this school	Children of poor people normally never get to see a school from the inside. Some parents have to 'lend' their sons and daughters to carpet manufacturers, because they cannot pay back loans which were given freely to them by agents travelling over the villages. Often these children disappear and never find back to their parents. The picture above shows a school for former carpet workers, founded by STEP Foundation	The schools for former carpet workers try to give these children a better future by teaching them basics like reading, writing and calculating. Some carpet manufacturers opposed strongly to this and tried to obstruct the construction of these schools

Almost every family in Bhadohi works for the carpet business, be it in producing or trading. Many children grow up working with their families. Aid organizations try not to outrule child labour as a whole, but they urge European an American importers to pay fair prices for the carpets. A decent income for the parents gives the children the possibility to visit school	The raw-wool for producing the carpets in mainly imported from New Zealand. The wool has to be cleaned and trimmed before it can enter the spinning process. The machines in this factory run 24 hours a day. Nightshift starts 6 p.m. and ends 6 a.m	The machines in the trimming-factories are often old models imported from Europe, where textile producing industries no longer have an economic importance. This machine was built in the 30's of this century. Accidents during work are quite frequent.	The air of the trimming-factories is filled with little particles of wool, which make breathing very unconfortable.

The noise in the spinning factory is deafening as hundreds of spindles roll up the wool. Each shift works for twelve hours	One o'clock in the morning at the spinning factory	After spinning the wool is dyed in a cooking colorbath.	End of the nighshift at the dyeing factory

Many wooldyers are migrant workers from Nepal who come to India in search of a better life	Most of the wool is still dyed manually by strapping it over a wheel and cooking it for several hours in color	The dyed wool is dried and bundled	Wooldyers have dreams, too

Many houses in Bhadohi are packed with wool up to the roof	The wool is exactly weighted before it goes out to the weavers.	The weavers live mostly in villages outside of Bhadohi, where they work on comission basis. They receive wool and design from the carpet-traders. Often the design is already preset by the carpet-importers of Europe, America or Japan	Weaving a carpet can take up to three months. Each knot is done manually, resulting in a carpet of tentousands of knots

It's hard to tell how many child-labourers are still working in the carpet industries of India. Carpet producers are well aware of the bad image child-labour has in Europe and America. So when I showed up with my camera, the children were usually brought away. These two boys were well hidden behind a weaving-stool	Some of the carpet-weaving is done under abysmal light conditions. This picture was taken at noon	Carpets pile up in the storage-house of a carpet exporter as they're waiting to be shipped to countries all over the world	In the finishing process each carpet is examined knot by knot. Any little irregularity is corrected with small scissors

Carpets of this quality have a price of about 2000$ in Switzerland. The weaver of a carpet gets less than ten percent of what the exporter gets. The exporter gets about ten percent of the final price in first world countires	A portrait of one of the biggest carpet-exporters of Bhadohi. 'He's a very important man.' we were told

Adhikara Art Gallery
updated 03.02.23