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From the late 19th century onwards, thousands of glossy, colourful paper labels with striking visuals arrived in India. Known as textile tickets, shippers’ tickets, textile or cotton marks, tika, or chaap, they were pasted on millions of packed yards of British and Indian milled cotton fabrics. They were many things at once – legally registered trademarks, advertisements, and perhaps the earliest forms of branding in India. Similar labels travelled from Britain to markets in other parts of Asia, Africa and South America, underlining the global reach of the textile trade. Textile tickets brought multi-coloured, mass-produced visuals to a wide cross-section of customers, standing at the confluence of the political, socio-cultural, commercial and artistic worlds of their time.
Seen from the lens of the present, these tickets are markers of historicity, and record the changes – political, socio-cultural, and economic – that swept through India, Britain and the world in this period.
The exhibition, Ticket Tika Chaap, shows a set of nearly 400 textile tickets from the collection of the Museum of Art & Photography, Bengaluru along with photographs, paintings and printed ephemera. Curated by Nathaniel Gaskell and Shrey Maurya, and designed by Shruti Singh at the MAP Academy, the exhibition is in partnership with the Museum of Art & Photography, Bengaluru, where it is on display from March to November 2025.
The exhibition is accompanied by a publication of the same name by Niyogi Books.
The exhibition has been made possible in partnership with Bank of America.
Curators: Nathaniel Gaskell, Shrey Maurya
Research: Rachna Shetty
Design: Shruti Singh, Harsh Singh
Conservation, Collection & Exhibition Management: Team at Museum of Art & Photography (MAP), Bengaluru
Ticket Tika Chaap: The Art of the Trademark in Indo-British Textile Trade
March 2025 – November 2025
Citi Gallery, Third Floor
Museum of Art & Photography (MAP)
22, Kasturba Rd, Shanthala Nagar,
Bengaluru, Karnataka 560001
For enquiries regarding the museum, please contact +91 80 6933 4100
Accessibility: Audio descriptions and ISL videos, wheelchair access, guide dogs allowed, lift on every floor
