Artist Highlight - Lami Textiles by Poulami

1. Fragments of Shrinking Shore begins with fish scales, a material that is handled every day  but rarely looked at closely. What made you return your attention to this overlooked part  of the fish?

The project began with a simple observation of value. Fish is consumed every day across  many cultures in India, but especially in Bengal, where it is deeply woven into daily life. It was food, culture, ritual, worship, livelihood, and memory. While preparing or eating fish,  the scales are removed almost automatically and discarded without much thought. I became  interested in that moment of dismissal. I kept wondering why a material with such intricate  structure, translucency, and strength was considered waste. Looking closely at fish scales  became a way of looking closely at the systems that decide what is valuable and what is not. The project emerged from that act of paying attention to what had always been there but  rarely acknowledged.

2. You write about growing up in Bengal, where fish is connected to identity as well as food.  How does that personal memory enter the material research?

In Bengal, fish is more than an ingredient; it is part of cultural identity, rituals, and everyday  conversations. The phrase "mache bhate bangali" reflects how deeply fish is embedded within our lives. My relationship with the material comes from those lived experiences  rather than from a laboratory or industrial context alone. Working with fish scales allowed me to reconnect with memories of home while examining the systems surrounding food,  waste, and value. The research became a way of understanding how cultural practices shape  our relationship with materials and how those materials can carry stories long after their  original purpose has ended. Working with them became a way of connecting material  innovation with heritage, place, and the everyday practices that often go unnoticed.

3. Coming from luxury fashion and couture, how has your understanding of embellishment changed through working with discarded marine matter?

Working in couture taught me to see embellishment as craft, beauty, and care. I spent years  working closely with sequins and embroidered surfaces, understanding how they catch light and carry meaning within a art. But I began noticing a contradiction. The same materials  placed with such attention were contributing to a form of pollution that returns to the very waters and communities connected to this work. Fish scales challenged me to think  differently. Instead of adding decoration for appearance alone, embellishment became a way of telling stories about origin, ecology, and material cycles. It made me to reconsider what it  is made from and what it leaves behind; and how it can be replaced by a mare daily discarded object from our kitchen and market. Beauty no longer sits only in the finished  object; it also exists in the transformation, care, and resourcefulness behind its making.

4. The project responds to microplastic pollution from synthetic sequins and fashion waste.  How do you hold that environmental urgency without letting it flatten the poetry of the  work?

I don't see the environmental and poetic aspects of the project as separate. The work emerged from recognising a contradiction: materials such as sequins contribute to pollution,  yet the waters affected by that pollution already hold overlooked resources and stories. Growing up in Bengal, my relationship with water was shaped through food, culture, and the communities connected to it. Fish scales felt significant because they came from that same  landscape. Rather than searching for a solution elsewhere, I found myself returning to a material that already existed within these cycles of life and livelihood. The poetry lies in that  return.

5. You connect the material to delta erosion, rising sea levels and fishing communities in Bengal. How do you approach these larger conditions through something as small as a fish scale?

The project began with a concern about the impact of fashion's material choices. Having worked in couture, I was fascinated by embellishment, but I also became increasingly aware  of how materials such as synthetic sequins contribute to microplastic pollution. Coming from Bengal, home to the Sundarbans and one of the world's largest mangrove ecosystems, I was witnessing conversations around rising sea levels, delta erosion, and the growing vulnerability of fishing communities whose livelihoods depend on these waters.

Rather than looking elsewhere for a solution, I became interested in what already existed within the same ecosystem. Fish scales, discarded daily by households and the fishing industry, offered that possibility. What interested me was not only their material potential, but the idea that a resource routinely treated as waste could create new forms of value. In that sense, the fish scale became a way of connecting fashion, environment, and livelihood  through a single material.