Walking into architect-designer Rooshad Shroff’s gallery space in Mumbai’s Fort, what strikes you are the colours and the variety of work. Some, like Paris and Lisbon-based multidisciplinary artist Pauline Guerrier’s Inquest I and Inquest II are riots of block-printed colour, but there are others such as Moroccan painter and photographer Amina Benbouchta’s Where the wind blows, which are more visceral. The bright red embroidery seems to jump off the canvas, in sharp contrast to a colour palette that is otherwise muted. And peppered through it all are Shroff’s embroidered furniture, such as wooden chairs (including collaborations with artists T. Venkanna and Tanya Goel), monolithic stone tables and other design objects.
The embroidery are the handiwork of craftspeople from Lucknow’s Kalhath Institute, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. Like India’s other craft-training institutions such as Mumbai’s Chanakya School of Craft, Kalhath works to preserve traditional Indian skills while giving artisans a contemporary professional context. Set up by French-Italian fashion-craft entrepreneur and textile designer Maximiliano Modesti, the institute works with Lucknow’s rich traditions of embroidery and textile craftsmanship, while also exploring their possibilities in contemporary art and design.
(L-R) Artworks Prospero’s Island and Where the wind blows by Amina Benbouchta, and The Balance Console by Rooshad Shroff
| Photo Credit:
Sourabh Chouhan
(L-R) Artworks Inquest II and Inquest I by Pauline Guerrier, with Shroff’s Embroidered Lounger
| Photo Credit:
Sourabh Chouhan
The show, ‘A Celebration of Thread’,features over 20 artworks and a range of craft techniques, from chikankari to zardozi and contemporary cording. These works have been embroidered at the Kalhath Institute through an artist-craftspersons jugalbandi.
Not everything is contemporary though, the show also reaches back into craft history. One of the first things you see is a tapestry by Italian Futurist painter Giacomo Balla from 1924, which was embroidered in Italy with a second edition embroidered in Kashmir that same year. It becomes a bridge between art and craft across continents. Modesti uses the work to highlight how “in the history of India, there’s been this history between artist-artisan collaboration”.
Maximiliano Modesti (right), Mohammad Amine Dadda (left), founders of The Kalhath Institute, with designer Rooshad Shroff. Seen behind is the artwork Red Rabbit” by T. Venkanna.
| Photo Credit:
Sourabh Chouhan
Make in India
In recent years, India has been fuelling its policy push towards ‘Make in India’ to value, recognise and retail its rich heritage. Modesti, 54, notes that the country seems to be having a strong global moment. “Art is a soft power, craft is a soft power. Luckily, in the last three years, there’s been a lot of major private initiatives in India,” says Modesti, who founded embroidery firm Les Ateliers 2M in Mumbai in 1998. “We had the Jindal craft prize [JSW Prize for Contemporary Craftsmanship] in 2018. And then the Ambani family helped to have the Indian pavilion at the Venice Biennale [in 2026].”
Concurrently, there has been a greater appreciation and understanding of Indian craftsmanship globally. Modesti attributes it to the visibility of what Indian craft is capable of, as fashion brands such as Hermès, Isabel Marant and Dries Van Notenhave begun toput a “Made in India” label on their products. As he emphatically says, “There’s not a single luxury brand that does not source from India. They might source embroidery, textiles, prints, or some other things, but there’s not a single luxury brand in the world that does not produce in India today.”
In the last decade, he’s partnered with French art critic-curator-collector Hervé Perdriolle to launch the Modesti Perdriolle Gallery in Brussels. Since its founding in 2021, their gallery has focussed on highlighting emerging Indian artists and underappreciated art — be it Rajasthan’s Tantra paintings or Warli tribal art.
How it all began
Modesti first came to India in 1992 from Paris to “do a study on the Indian market for luxury”. However, “I spent five weeks touring the country. And I realised very fast that there was no market for luxury brands at that moment. It was really, really nascent”, he says. However, the ubiquity of Indian craft caught his attention and he remembers thinking, “How is it possible that a country that has so many crafts, so many exceptional crafts, is famous for the one-dollar T-shirt?”
This dissonance between what the country was known for in the West — cheap, mass-produced goods — and its ground reality is what led him to set up a business in India. He clarifies though, “There was no plan, there was no study, it was pure intuition.” In the over three decades since, Modesti has been a champion of Indian craftsmanship and skill, working with brands such as Alexander McQueen and Alaia, Hermès and Vivienne Westwood through 2M Ateliers.
Artisans at Kalhath Institute in Lucknow.
| Photo Credit:
Athul Prasad
To be able to focus on the quality consistency of the output, he had to first ensure the karigars he was working with would remain on the job.As a result, he had to start from scratch. He says, “When I came into the country 30 years ago, the embroidery artisans in Bombay were paid by the day or by the week. There was no contract. There was no monthly salary. There was no PF, ESIC, there was nothing of that.” Today, 2M Ateliers employs over 800 craftspeople.
Threading a story
Ten years ago, he set up Kalhath, a training centre, “to give back and to empower the artisan”. It takes in only 25 craftspeople a year, and you need five years of embroidery experience to qualify. He chose Lucknow because of its historic textile links. Within a 20-km radius of the city, there are over 1 lakh craftspeople practising embroidery such as chikankari, zardozi, aari and jamdani, to name a few.
Artist T. Venkanna with artisans at Kalhath Institute
| Photo Credit:
Courtesy Kalhath Institute
An artwork of T. Venkanna being embroidered at Kalhath Institute
| Photo Credit:
Courtesy Kalhath Institute
Since 2018, the artist-in-residence programme at Kalhath has pushed the institute’s craft beyond the norm, working with off-beat themes such as nudity and death (as in the collaboration with T. Venkanna, the Baroda-based artist known for his frank depictions of the human body in his art).
Artist Amina Benbouchta with artisans at Kalhath Institute
| Photo Credit:
Vansh Deep Agarwal
Artist Yassine Balbzioui with artisans at Kalhath Institute
| Photo Credit:
Priyansh Tripathi
In the show text, Moroccan multi-disciplinary artist Yassine Balbzioui explains how his works came together. “Through my work, I engaged in a sort of ‘ping-pong’ with the craftspeople: I would start a design — ink interventions on the fabric — then the craftspeople would embroider it, and I would then transform the design again, and so on throughout the creative process,” he says. Each work created for the show is either returned to the artist or archived at the Kalhath Institute.
Looking ahead
In the next decade, Modesti plans to expand on training more artisans. He notes, “There are over 60 million artisans within India. So, we need to understand the volume of the know-how and population linked to craft.”
But he also sounds weighed down by the lack of institutionalised education and facilities for craftspeople. “Everything is quite nascent, despite the fact that craft has been, since the last 500 years, central to the economic development of the subcontinent,” he concludes.
Artisans from the 2M Atelier and Kalhath Institute at the Rooshad Shroff Gallery
| Photo Credit:
Sourabh Chouhan
Artwork Seen is Invisible Language by Yassine Balbzioui, along with the Rooshad Shroff x Tanya Goel Obverse Chairs
| Photo Credit:
Sourabh Chouhan
‘A Celebration of Thread’ is on view at Gallery Rooshad Shroff, Ballard Estate, Mumbai, till September 30, by appointment.
The writer is based in Mumbai.
