Chitrali Shu

Last updated: 12 January 2023

About the project

We are hosting a 2-year project to document the endangered practice of making shu, a handwoven woollen fabric, characteristic of the Chitral region in northern Pakistan.

The mountainous region of Chitral in northern Pakistan connects Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Xinjiang in northwest China. It is home to a climate-adapted and windproof pure woollen fabric, called shu in the local Khowar language and patti in Urdu. The knowledge and skills of making shu is a renowned heritage of the people of Chitral who turn this famous hand-woven textile into warm clothing for themselves and trade it across borders. The knowledge, skills and social rituals related to the making of shu are endangered due to changes in the climate, an ageing population in the villages and the lack of interest in craft skills from younger generations. This project will document key technical and cultural aspects of this process as it is still carried out and lived by a few families in Chitral through film and interviews.

The project is funded by the Endangered Material Knowledge Programme (EMKP), a grant programme established at the British Museum with support from Arcadia. Responding to momentous changes, this project, led by an independent Scottish-Pakistani researcher in collaboration with the Chitrali women’s cooperative Kho and Kalashi and a Pakistani woman videographer, will preserve the knowledge of making shu for the benefit of the local Chitrali community. The documentation will finally be made publicly accessible in the EMKP’s online archive.

Watch “Kasb-e-Hunar (Skilled Enclave)”, a 2016 short film by Adil Iqbal.