Standing in the marketplace
Kabir’s couplet places the speaker inside the marketplace while refusing to be captured by its divisions. The line wishes well for everyone, then declines both friendship-as-attachment and enmity.
“कबिरा खड़ा बाज़ार में, माँगे सबकी खैर / ना काहू से दोस्ती, ना काहू से बैर”
The design for The Illusion of Distance treats that balance as a visual principle: movement around stillness, a solitary figure amid the market, a central vertical rule, restrained geometry, and expansive negative space. The words remain the primary structure.
From couplet to cloth
Entry 002 translates the thought into a premium literary garment using the approved master artwork. The master remains the immutable print authority for production, while the garment composition determines scale, placement and negative space.
The production direction is natural unbleached ecru raw cotton with crisp carbon-black discharge screen printing. The visual language deliberately avoids devotional clichés, cartoon portraits, rustic props, faux-vintage treatment, and decorative excess.
The illusion of distance
Distance here is not indifference. It is the space between goodwill and attachment: wishing everyone well without needing to stand inside every camp, argument, friendship or rivalry.
Entry 002 / 500 · KITABI LIBAS
Explore the garment: The Illusion of Distance
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