A vibrant new exhibition reveals the sari as a living art form with a past stretching back several thousand years.

On a rainy Wednesday night in a program room at the Surrey Art Gallery, a group of women and one man share stories and ideas. Lengths of silk in rainbow hues–peacock blue, ruby red, golden green, tangerine, subtle gradations of pink into lilac into turquoise–are displayed around the room. Outside, it's dark and drear. Inside, all is warmth, colour, and melodious voices. An advisory committee of 18 people from Greater Vancouver's Indo-Canadian community, they have assembled to shape the SAG's big spring show. The Art of the Sari–which opens on Saturday (March 31) with a reception from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. and runs to June 10–honours community-cultural initiatives and the world's longest-enduring female fashion.

"There's historical evidence that the sari has been in existence for over 5,000 years," says Liane Davison, the SAG's curator of exhibitions and collections. She also asserts that it is worn by a billion women, not just on the Indian subcontinent but throughout the world, wherever South Asian people have migrated. Consisting of an unstitched piece of cloth between five and nine metres in length, the sari is usually wrapped as a skirt around the body and secured at the waist, with the loose end arranged across the torso and over one shoulder. It can be draped in a variety of ways, depending on the region and context in which it's worn.

Whether richly embroidered with gold or silver thread, woven in intricate designs, block-printed, or tie-dyed, there is no doubt about the beauty of the saris on display. Still, the study and appreciation of saris seem more suited to craft than art. Organizers point to the complex signifiers woven into the textiles and how they're worn–a women's history expressed through domestic materials.

"We want to show the saris as contemporary art, living art," says Davison. Art, she adds, takes many more forms than painting, sculpture, and photography. "It has the possibility for changing how you might see things and be catalytic in terms of understanding the world."

Nadia Deol, a Langley-based theatre director and playwright, has been active in community outreach for the show. She points out the rich embroidery and cutwork on a silk sari from Kashmir, then demonstrates the widespread nivi style of draping, which originated in Andhra Pradesh and has been popularized by Bollywood films. Worn over a short-sleeved blouse (a choli) and petticoat (a lehnga), the cloth is tucked into the waistband of the petticoat as it is wrapped around the body. On the second pass around, kick pleats are formed at the front of the garment, again tucked into the waistband, and may or may not be pinned in place. Deol laughs heartily as she describes a mishap at a formal event she attended. She was wearing a heavily embroidered Banarasi-style sari she'd borrowed from a much taller sister-in-law. "I thought, 'There's so much material, I can tuck it in, I don't need a pin,'" she says. "I stepped on the pleats and they popped out."

Most of the 40 saris in the exhibition, many of them loaned by women on the advisory committee, have memories and stories attached to them. Some of the saris are new and some are old; some belonged to mothers, grandmothers, or great-grandmothers. Others are made of such fine silk and are so extravagantly embroidered with gold or silver thread that they are collector's items rather than wearable garments. Others, of printed cotton, serve as everyday wear for less privileged women. Others still, in silk chiffon or organza, were worn at weddings in India, Africa, Sri Lanka, Fiji, or Canada. They speak eloquently of the Indian diaspora, the passage of time, and the endurance of cultural ties.

Pushpanjli Matharoo unwraps a sari she brought with her to the meeting. A peach-pink colour, it is covered with floral patterns traced in opalescent sequins, which she hand-stitched along the edges of the fabric and at the end of the sari that is draped over the shoulder, known as the pallu. "I started this in New Delhi in 1972 and brought it with me when I came to Canada," she says. She'd intended to wear it at her own wedding, but she was so busy with career and studies (she worked in the library of the Supreme Court of India, then did her master's degree in library sciences at Long Island University in New York) that she hadn't completed it by the time she got married. She wore another sari to the wedding, set the original aside, raised a family, worked, volunteered, and only recently finished the embroidery, in time for the SAG show. "Thirty-five years," she reiterates.

In addition to the personal or family history that each sari may invisibly bear, the printed or embroidered patterns often have narrative or symbolic significance. A yellow-and-maroon silk sari from Rajasthan is decorated with images of palace windows, gardens, mazes, parrots, peacocks, and elephants, all motifs of Mogul royalty. A tant-style sari from northern India depicts a princely hunting scene, printed in black ink on the garment's beige silk. Deol holds up a sari that her mother wore in East Africa in the 1970s. Printed with a "psychedelic" design, it evokes American counterculture. There's also a plain white cotton sari here, the essence of simplicity, hand-woven in an ashram associated with Mahatma Gandhi.

Davison describes the different ways in which the garments will be displayed, and the poems, commissioned from local writers, that will be part of the exhibition. She also mentions Cultural Mashups: Bhangra, Bollywood & Beyond, taking place in SAG's TechLab, adjacent to the galleries. "They're related in that they look at the influence of India on global culture." Then she adds, "The way the sari is worn is a statement of identity. You really do get the sense of people's passion for it."

Siddiqa Adatia, who arrived in Surrey from Sri Lanka five years ago, agrees. She adds other significant characteristics of this extraordinary art form: what it feels like to wear it. "It's so graceful, it's so beautiful, it's so womanly," she says. "You feel proud to be a woman."