November 24, 2020 - December 02, 2021

Gaj: Colours of the Rainbow

Gaj: Colours of the Rainbow focuses on embroidery on a woman’s blouse front. The embroidery on Gaj is important not only as adornment but also in establishing individual and group identity. The exhibition, displaying over sixty pieces from across Sindh, Balochistan, Gilgit Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, draw on several private collections, with some objects dating back over one hundred years or more.

As the styles of embroidery are unique to each part of the country they are known by different names in different areas  such as Gaj in Sindh, jeegh in Balochistan, iraghi in the Hunza, Nagar and Ghizr valleys and gulkari in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.


This exhibition continues a tradition at the Mohatta Palace Museum of displaying and documenting a range of handmade textiles from Pakistan, and to a certain extent, the wider region. Earlier exhibitions on the same theme include Threads in Time and the internationally acclaimed, A Flower from Every Meadow.