Themed around Devi, Mata Ni Pachedi is a 800 year old art form that the Chitara community is preserving in Gujarat. Also known as Kalamkari from Gujarat, the artform tells stories of Hindu Mythology and Indian folklore depicting scenes from epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata. As Kirit Bhai, a 9th generation artist holds a bamboo stick dipped in allum and mador ( natural colour to achieve deep red).
Read MoreAnita Lal is the founder of the luxury brand, Good Earth that was started in 1996. Lal was a Psychology graduate and a studio potter before launching the brand. Good Earth started as a boutique and has now transformed into one of the most well-known luxury and lifestyle brands from India.
Read MoreGautam Sinha is the founder of the New Delhi-based ‘leather and thread’ brand, Nappa Dori. It was launched in 2010 after Sinha had a chance encounter with leather while working for a Scandinavian client and crafted a line of belts. Nappa Dori is a luxury brand that introduced the vintage, wanderlust-inspired travel goods like colourful trunks that replaced the ubiquitous backpack. Sinha also added Cafe Dori to his leather venture that enhances the experience of being a part of the brand.
Read MoreSince the 1940s, Mrs Anjali Mangaldas, then a child, gradually began collecting textiles, those from Gujarat being predominant. Each piece was selected with great care, some being sourced from antique textile dealers in Ahmedabad and others during her extensive travels.
Read More2019 is the bicentenary birth year of Queen Victoria, to mark this anniversary Historic Royal Palaces (HRP) has created a new exhibition at Kensington Palace. Victoria: Woman and Crown, explores the queen’s private life and her role as a monarch, mother and Empress of India.
Read MoreTextiles are a key component of our material history, the importance of which cannot be understated. They need to be considered holistically; each piece is not only a product, a design, or even a piece of art, but is also a method of passing on a story. On our recent visit to London, C&J visited a range of textile exhibitions to observe the role of textiles in telling stories across the globe.
Read More“Real museums are places where Time is transformed into Space,” said Orhan Pamuk in his novel, The Museum of Innocence. The relationship between time and space is undeniable when it comes to museums and galleries, where people and their artworks are tied within the confines of the present. The role of the museum must serve the purpose of relaying tales of the era they come from despite the immobile disposition of the artefacts in display. The performative aspects of museums and memorabilia are fascinating because of this precise juxtaposition of ‘timescapes’ and interaction.
Read MoreAn hour’s drive from the Dehradun airport through forests of Uttarakhand, we reached Vana, a wellness stay carefully designed for a holistic experience offering Yoga, Meditation, Ayurvedic treatments, Tibetan Healing, Spa and conscious cuisine midst a 21-acre green land. A brainchild of Veer Singh, Vana engages all five senses with its elements that are well thought out and inspired by minimalistic Japanese Buddhism and ancient Indian wisdom. Some other offerings at the space are art, music and dance residencies.
Read MorePierre Jeanneret was a Geneva born Swiss designer and architect. Along with his visionary cousin, better known as Le Corbusier, they became an unstoppable duo that collaborated on many projects together, including multiple residential spaces.
Read MoreWe have always been sensitive and susceptible to our environments, as beings accustomed to activity and movement. Our collective spaces of engagement are usually divided between the private and the public, here exemplified by domestic courtyard houses (patio, riad, haveli) and the common marketplace (souk). Historically, courtyard homes are responses to community values (social, cultural, and religious) and the ways in which people gathered were influenced by trade relations that led to exchange of socio-cultural aspects of different communities.
Read MoreAn author and oral historian, Aanchal Malhotra’s debut novel Remnants of a Separation: A History of Partition through Material Memory is a moving exploration of personal stories of the journeys made across the Radcliff Line, during the 1947 Partition of the Indian sub-continent. Her work is a ground-breaking milestone in the socio-cultural ethnographic study of the greatest migration in history.
Read MoreBangalore-based artist, Shilo Shiv Suleman, is an INK Fellow and the Founder-Director of ‘The Fearless Collective’— a movement to reclaim public spaces through community art and participative storytelling. Her creative pursuits encompass illustrations and installation art that meditate on magic, technology, the feminine, and the divine.
Read MoreIf you have to visit Padmaja maami’s house, do come when you are relatively free to spend time with her. She will not let you leave without relishing her signature Madras filter coffee and indulging in some amazing conversations about beliefs, blouses and baking techniques. I chose a cozy, warm afternoon to spend time with her and her husband in their house in Chennai.
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