The lines between craft, art, and design are blurring now more than ever before. Artisanal techniques, once seen as the antithesis of “cool”, are gaining ground in art and design circles.

Last year saw several narratives around textile, helping transform them into powerful tools of inquiry into cultural identity and sustainability. Exhibitions such as When Indian Flowers Bloomed in Distant Lands (on view in Ahmedabad until March) highlighted the political and economic importance of textiles in India’s global trade, while From Folk to Fibre — featured at the ‘Journeying Across the Himalayas’ festival in December under the Royal Enfield Social Mission — celebrated the myths, stories, and social bonds woven into textiles from nine Himalayan regions.

Reimagined by a new wave of artisans, designers, and craftspeople, these showcases challenged traditional biases in textile storytelling, offering unique perspectives on social, environmental and cultural concerns.

Wall hangings, upholstery textiles and pillar floor lamps by This and That, a furniture design brand led by Ariane Thakore Ginwala

Themes of community and empathy

Sense and Sensibility, a showcase by Bengaluru-based research and study centre The Registry of Sarees (TRS) at last month’s Raw Collaborative exhibition in Gandhinagar, invited viewers to see textiles not just as objects, but as extensions of identity, prompting reflections on personal and collective narratives. Ahalya Matthan, founder of TRS, describes it as “an exploration of human interactions”.

(L_R) Ahalya Matthan with Vishwesh Surve, Radha Parulekar and Aayushi Jain 

She adds, “There is a divisiveness [between art and craft], though it isn’t always acknowledged. Exhibitions like this place the onus on us to tell the story inclusively, highlighting not just craft, art, and design, but the people behind them — their processes, materiality, and skill.”

Curated by textile designers and researchers Aayushi Jain, Vishwesh Surve, and Radha Parulekar, the exhibition breaks from academic rigour to explore themes of community, empathy, and collective identity. Textile history is often shaped by academicians and experts, while the vernacular voices, particularly those of contemporary stakeholders such as weavers and designers, remain largely sidelined. By amplifying these perspectives, TRS aims to build a knowledge registry that addresses the environmental, economic, and sociological challenges textiles present in modern life.

Nearly 100 works from 36 designers, artists, darners, collectors and community-led initiatives participated, the works on display tracing a continuum of influences: from industrialisation and Art Deco to Bauhaus, minimalism, sustainability, and technology. Be it monochrome ikat, brocade and jamdani artworks by designer duo David Abraham and Rakesh Thakore, Kutchi torans from collector Salim Wazir’s private collection, heirloom Banarasi brocades showcased at the Festival of India exhibitions in the 1980s and 90s, Toda embroidery from the pastoral people of Nilgiris, or 17th-19th century carpets from Iran and Iraq from Bengaluru-based collector Danny Mehra’s collection.

A series of works with Toda embroidery, presented by Coonoor & Co

“Even 76 years after independence, we’re still grappling with questions of identity. Authenticity starts with understanding who we are. Only then can we address the deeper issues that textiles, craft, and art present — not just aesthetics, but the human connections they foster. Every textile cluster embodies the desire to connect; to share who they are and where they come from.”Ahalya Matthan The Registry of Sarees

Breaking conventional divisions

The emotional resonance of textiles was seen in the juxtaposition of two works. Naye Mein Purana by Vankar Vishram Valji and Between Indigo and Light by textile designer Chinar Farooqui’s brand Injiri. The former, “an intricate piece woven from handspun cotton, kala cotton, tussar silk, desi oon, merino wool, and acrylic yarn, reflects the Valji family’s deep-rooted weaving tradition in Kutch”, says Dinesh, one of the four sons of the National Award-winning craftsman, and who dedicated 25 days to weaving the piece. On the adjacent wall, Farooqui combined art and architecture through indigo, sheer jamdani panels, and a contemporary take on the mehrab motif, traditionally found on the walls of mosques.

Naye Mein Purana by Vankar Vishram Valji

The two installations — one by a craftsperson, the other by a designer — represented distinct social and creative experiences. And the proximity of the works, particularly given that Farooqui has collaborated with the Valji family to develop textiles for her brand, broke down the conventional divisions between designer and craftsperson. “A designer [who knows how to sell] bridges the gap between the market and the craftsperson, who often lacks that market-facing approach,” says Dinesh. Farooqui adds, “Design and craft must merge — we can’t do without each other.”

Between Indigo and Light by Injiri 

As Shama Pawar, founder of Kishkinda Trust (which promotes cultural industries and creative economies in Anegundi-Hampi) explains, the myth of craft-making is changing. “People are taking more liberties; it’s about creating partnerships that inspire.” Her own installation, The Shuttle of Time, crafted from banana fibre and ilkal pallu yarn, symbolised the fragile balance between heritage and the future.

Shama Pawar

A cultural exchange

Rather than framing India’s crafts as relics of colonial plunder, the narrative is evolving into a dynamic, ongoing cultural exchange between rural and urban practitioners, craft and commerce, and the past and the present. “I question how much we should revere craft or freeze it in time,” states Mala Pradeep Sinha of Vadodara-based Bodhi design studio. “For craftspeople, it’s about responding to the market. If change is needed, so be it. So why are we, the so-called experts, trying to impose a narrative that suits us?”

This thinking translated into Sinha’s QR Code Quilt, a striking black-and-white wall hanging made from upcycled block-printed scraps. “Quilt-making isn’t just about stitching fabric together; it’s about bringing people together to share conversations, tiffin, and ideas. That bond fosters empathy — and without empathy, you can’t work creatively.”

Mala Pradeep Sinha’s QR Code Quilt

Sustainability and community were also central to the work of Jagriti Phukan, based in Dhemaji, Assam. Her textile piece, Inheritance of Nature, created from long strands of matted, handspun muga and eri silk, expressed the symbiotic relationship between heritage, tradition, folklore, and nature.  

Jagriti Phukan

Textiles and fibre-based art are more complex than people often think. As Aratrik Dev Varman, the founder-designer of Ahmedabad-based Tilla studio, puts it, they are about “intent and exploring personal expression”, and not just creating for the market. “Exhibitions like Sense and Sensibility are crucial for mapping India’s evolving textiles and crafts before they’re lost,” he concludes, stressing the designer’s role in influencing and recording change.

The writer is a columnist and critic, with a keen focus on fashion, textiles, and culture.

At the debut Architecture & Design Film Festival (ADFF) in Mumbai — brought to India from across the Atlantic by STIR, a media house and curatorial agency, earlier this month — one question took over all the rest: how has this not been done before? In a country where industry-led trade shows and design fairs are a dime-a-dozen, silo-ing a profession that impacts us all, this was a breath of fresh air.

The city’s iconic National Centre for the Performing Arts played host to this South Asian premiere, where these interconnected worlds collided and cross-pollinated using a medium we can all relate to: cinema. “Both cinema and architecture influence and get influenced by the cultural commentary of a country. And, they influence each other too,” says Amit Gupta, founder and editor-in-chief at STIR. The medium is crucial in breaking the exclusivity of design circles, and inviting all creatives to participate in understanding the impact of design and architecture.

Amit Gupta

Vast themes were traversed: riveting dramas such as E.1027, a tale of obsession, love and loss through a home built by Irish architect Eileen Grey in France’s Cote d’Azur, which later captured the attention of celebrated architect Le Corbusier, the mastermind behind Chandigarh; documentaries such as Soviet Bus Stops, which traces buildings created as small acts of poetry in a totalitarian regime; and biographies such as the Oscar-nominated My Architect, a heartfelt portrait of renowned American architect Louis Kahn’s past, painted by his son who barely knew him.

Posters of a few films screened at ADFF

Over three days, 20+ international films, a multi-faceted public programme, and a comprehensive lineup of talks brought a new flavour to this New York-origin festival’s remarkable 16 years (and counting) run. Its goal? To create an educational yet entertaining annual environment where fundamentally human stories narrated through film spark discussions about design in South Asia. As New York-based architect Suchi Reddy explains, “Architecture is not just an echo chamber for the cognisant, it has a value for society. ADFF bridges this gap with a much-needed venue for meaningful discourse.”

Breaking silos

Conversations to bring ADFF to India began two years ago and, ever since, its curation was guided by a deeper enquiry: how does one truly bring it home? To give contextual depth, relevant films from previous editions were fished out and aired again alongside new entries rooted in the region’s history — such as a biography on Sri Lanka’s Geoffrey Bawa and his works of tropical modernism, and Lovely Villa, which walks viewers through the iconic LIC Colony by Indian architect and urban planner Charles Correa in Borivali, underlining the relationship between architecture, family, memories and everyday life.

Sustainability emerged as a perennial theme through Biocentrics, a dive into nature as a source of design inspiration and Fashion Reimagined, where a young designer’s new collection of field-to-finished garments catalyses personal change and a societal revolution. Kyle Bergman, director and founder of ADFF (who worked on the festival lineup in the company of Martino Stierli, New York City’s Museum of Modern Art’s Philip Johnson chief curator of architecture and design) says, “We have a broad view of ‘design’ — it encompasses everything, especially beyond the tangible. While schools tend to silo disciplines, once you get out, design is for everyone.”

Kyle Bergman and (right) Martino Stierli

This was clear through the comprehensive public programme, put together for the first time in the history of ADFF, titled ‘~log(ue)’: an inventive twist to the suffix -logue/-log and its Hindi homonym which stands for people. Disciplinary jargon was eschewed, as were the run-of-the-mill panel discussions. Instead, the audience — a refreshing outpouring of creative professionals limited not only to architects, but design lovers, film enthusiasts and connoisseurs of culture — huddled together in the central Pavilion Park to discuss fresh ideas. For instance, with a card game called Aamchi Mumbai, the audience discussed ways in which design could improve the city, gamifying the idea of being an active, involved citizen.

The Architect Has Left The Building, one of two special projects at the event

‘Multiple ways of seeing’

Also at Pavilion Park, the ‘Frames of Reference’ installations offered a glimpse into the creative processes of 10 globally renowned Indian architects, from Mumbai’s SHROFFLEóN to Tania and Sandeep Khosla of TSK Design in Bengaluru. One of them was Chromacosm, by Reddy in collaboration with Asian Paints, where more than 2,000 colours came together to fade to black, mimicking pixelation on screen as a 3D experience you could walk through. As festival curator Samta Nadeem puts it, “When we talk about building our world/ future, it has to be inclusive, but most importantly, it has to be plural, allowing for multiple ways of seeing.”

‘Frames of Reference’ installations

Chromacosm

The oft-used ADFF tagline ‘Design Directs Everything’, as Bergman shares, has become increasingly relevant today. Visual media, voraciously consumed through streaming and social media platforms, has inarguably become the most impactful way to reach, move and affect audiences. And in an uncertain world — where increasingly, AI-generated content is consumed — every creator across the world needs to meet to expand the narrative of what it means to create and design. The things we create impact and shape our reality.

An architect-turned-journalist, the writer hopes her passion for storytelling drives an incisive cultural commentary.

Minimalist architect Mies van der Rohe went so far as to say, “A chair is a very difficult object. A skyscraper is almost easier.” We can’t be so sure about that, but it does draw attention to how designing seating has always called for extraordinary rigour, whether painstakingly methodical or purposely frivolous, balancing material and form with ingenuity. Chairs and seats are objects of fascination. It’s a fact that a chair has to take a more complex form, unlike a bed which is simply flat. Designers have shaped their oeuvre with the chair as entree, often proving their mettle with an outstanding seating design. Here are our picks of 2024, of chairs and their makers that will push you to the edge.

Dressing up at Missoni

Ziggy Pouf
| Photo Credit:
Special arrangement

At Milan Design Week, Italian brand Missoni Home’s artistic director Alberto Caliri had a brainwave to showcase their new 2024 collection in actor-influencer Paolo Stella’s residence, SuonareStella. One setting had a group of playful, informal poufs with cylindrical bases and domed tops. These poufs mushrooming up, strangely counter the idea of sitting while inviting you to do so. Like all things at Missoni, the core is fabric with a confessed touch of madness. The designs are named after the fabric patterns, such as Ziggy Pouf after the hypnotic zigzag in viscose-blend canvas and Pouf Nastri for its bold geometric print.

https://www.missoni.com/en-in/home-collection/living/pouffes/ 

Taming the wild

Maasai Shield Chair by Jomo Tariku.
| Photo Credit:
Courtesy: Wexler Gallery, Philadelphia, NYC

Kenyan-born Ethiopian designer Jomo Tariku, based in Virginia, USA, has garnered an outstanding reputation for his interpretation of African symbols and culture as futuristic designs. We fell in love with his Meedo Chair, inspired by an Afro comb — an everyday companion object imagined as oversized. His walnut veneer Meedo acquired by the Met, NY in 2021 has also versions in bronze, ebonised and painted ash. For Tariku, who has had a long journey to recognition, it’s been important to give Black culture a visible platform and change its perception in the world. Inspired by the African Birthing Chair, constructed simply of two interlocking wooden planks, his Maasai Shield Chair is a swish combination of a moulded acrylic seat and a Maasai shield-shaped back of Baltic birch.

Price on inquiry at https://www.wexlergallery.com/artists-and-designers/jomo-tariku

The whole 9 yards

9.5 by Ekaya X Suchi Reddy.
| Photo Credit:
Courtesy: 9.5 Suchi Reddy x Ekaya

When Palak Shah of Delhi’s 130-year-old textile atelier, Ekaya Banaras got together with Indian-American Suchi Reddy, founder of Reddymade in NYC, the nine-and-half yard sari got a whole new twist. Shah and Reddy, both global-facing women entrepreneurs, combine their dynamic outlook and passion for Indian heritage in the 9.5 collection, which launched at Ateliers Courbet, NY in October 2024. Sculptural shapes (eucalyptus veneer on CNC plywood forms) are modelled after the sari’s flowing drape, from wave-form benches to a ripple-like chaise lounge that mimics the shape of the body. The gorgeous weaves designed by Reddy are based on the zero and overlay an infinity motif over a herringbone pattern. Made by Ekaya, these are rendered in glorious hues — from aquamarine blue and salmon pink to lilac, fuchsia and wine.

Price on request at https://ateliercourbet.com/exhibitions/ekaya-suchi-reddy

Sit relax man woman

Mahalo Lounge Chair by John Koga. Made of plaster glass.
| Photo Credit:
Ralph Pucci International  

The Mahalo Lounge is one of those quixotic chairs that defies definition. With its soft, flowing lines and humanistic persona, it has the earthiness of an Inuit sculpture and the sensuality of a Jean Arp. Designed for Ralph Pucci International by Honolulu artist John Koga, the three-legged lounge chair in Plaster Glass, originally hand-sculpted, is now manufactured by mould-forming and hand-finishing. It won Interior Design Best of the Year 2024 for the gallery. At Studio Manoa, Koga’s workshop and studio, his organic expressions are odes to stones, sky and the ocean, recalling how waves gently shape natural forms. Retail price: $12,000

https://ralphpucci.com/artists-designers/view/john-koga/

The biology of a chair

Objets Mito by Abid Javed. Three legged modular 02 chair in brown stoneware (L) and three-legged sculpture in red stoneware.
| Photo Credit:
Abid Javed

At the London Design Festival, Objets Mito by Abid Javed, delved into mitochondrial biology, with the intent to explore relationships between form, materiality and function. A chair and a sculptural object, visualised as a pair in clay, create a surrealistic landscape removing the regular notions of ‘chair’. On his Insta page, this London-based ceramic designer, talks about giving pause. Perhaps this is a piece that lets us stop and reflect on the chair’s organic origins and how it’s closely connected to the body.

Inquiries at https://www.abidjaved.com/

Stack and sit

Armchair in 100% upcycled felted Merino wool, recycled PET and post-consumer aluminium.
| Photo Credit:
Patrick Biller

Baer Armchair
| Photo Credit:
Patrick Biller

Launched at Design Miami 2023 in collaboration with Mindy Solomon Gallery, Stackabl’s Baer Collection won the 2024 Good Design Award. The multidisciplinary design practice started by Jeff Forrest based in Toronto is on a heady mission to reuse textile waste, away from landfills, in their words, “striving to divert 500 tons into configurable furniture and lighting by 2029”. The Baer Collection, honouring the late activist Barbara Baer Capitman, in eye-catching geometry combines upcycled Merino wool, post-consumer aluminium and recycled PET for a truly sustainable design.

Inquiries at https://www.instagram.com/stack_abl/?hl=en

Ahead of the curve

This February at India Design ID 2025 in New Delhi, watch out for these parametric designs by two Indian studios literally shaping the future chairs.

Curvilinear loop lounger
| Photo Credit:
andblack design studio

Structure meets function seamlessly in fluid forms of the Loop series launched in 2017 by Ahmedabad-based andblack design studio. This marked the venture into furniture design for founders Jwalant and Kanika Mahadevwala whose work combines their strengths in generative design and sustainable architecture. The curvilinear Loop lounger designed by Jwalant, showing at ID 2025, uses birch plywood and a mix of digital and handcrafted processes to render an exemplary piece.

Loop lounger with stool in moulded birch plywood by andblack: ₹1,80,000 + GST

Loop masque chandelier in moulded birch plywood by andblack: ₹2,25,000 + GST

https://www.andblackstudio.com/

Sculpting with fabric

Lehar by Hands & Minds. Bespoke fabric on ply base with foam and fibre reinforced polymer on MS framework. 
| Photo Credit:
Manan Surti

You cannot decide where this chair ends and sitting begins in Lehar, an exquisitely handcrafted design by Kolkata studio Hands & Minds. Designer Abin Chaudhari combines traditional artistry with contemporary idioms while transporting us to narratives across time and space. Inspired by the idea of a flying carpet, this lounger unfolds in a dreamy patchwork quilt effect, bringing a whole new interactive experience to sitting. Price: ₹4,76,300 before taxes. Inquiries at 91 90737 51697.

https://www.instagram.com/handsminds/?hl=en

The writer is a brand strategist with a background in design from SAIC and NID.

Published – January 31, 2025 03:39 pm IST