Jaipur Rugs weaver Kasturi Balotia has released her debut rug design as part of the company's Manchaha initiative, which aims to take textile workers in rural India from a position of "exploitation to empowerment".
Called Deepak, the rug has been shortlisted for this year's Dezeen Award in the homeware design category, with winners set to be announced on 25 November.
Balotia, who normally executes the designs of others, was given the opportunity to create the pattern spontaneously on the loom, using yarn offcuts that would otherwise have gone to waste.
In this way, the Manchaha project hopes to improve the social and economic standing of female weavers like her, while making the industry itself more circular.
Kasturi Balotia dubbed her rug design Deepak, meaning source of light "We feel that one cannot be done without the other," Jaipur Rugs founder Nand Kishore Chaudhary told Dezeen.
"Change is always from the ground up and if we do not work to uphold the dignity of the art and its artist then we won't be able to achieve the sustainability goals we aspire to."
Dezeen Awards judge Natsai Audrey Chieza applauded the project, describing it as "the future of design".
"This is a noteworthy intervention that, without overstatement or hype, fuses equity-based, impact-oriented and sustainability-focused design, craft and production," she said.
A pattern of red, yellow and blue lanterns runs across the rug in a nod to Diwali
By al...