One millimeter. This is the limit of tolerance with which the masters of the Chanakya school of crafts must work. This is a surprisingly significant figure for an organization that now presents monumental works of fiber, sculpture and embroidery. The scale may have changed, but the principle has not: the spectacle is built from tiny, repeated acts of attention.
Masters Chanakya | Photo credit: Hashim Badani.
This September, Chanakya International celebrates 40 years of its founding, as well as the 10th anniversary of the Chanakya Foundation and School of Crafts, with three exhibitions in Mumbai.
On the Road at Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum runs from September 8 to October 20; Garden of Gestures at the Chanakya atelier until September 30; and Belong at Experimenter, Colaba, from 10 September to 17 October. Together they offer something more interesting than an anniversary retrospective. They trace how the Mumbai embroidery atelier has evolved into a cultural practice that spans fashion, education, research and contemporary art, and along the way asks why the craft is still so often seen as adjacent to, rather than part of, art.
From left to right: Maria Grazia Chiuri, Tasneem Zakaria Mehta and Karisma Swali | Photo credit: Special Arrangement
Chanakya International is essentially a Mumbai-based tailor shop founded in 1986. It grew out of a belief in the value of Indian craftsmen and their accumulated knowledge and eventually became a major force in global fashion, while expanding into research, education and artistic practice. Today, under the leadership of Karishma Swali, creative director of Chanakya International and Chanakya School of Craft, the Byculla-based practice maintains creative relationships with over 50 international fashion houses.
Unfolding
At the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum in Byculla, “The Journey on a Journey” begins with a journey that began thousands of miles from the Vatican Apostolic Library in Rome. There, Karishma and the Chanakya team discovered the stories of six 19th-century women—Nellie Bly, Annie Londonderry, Gertrude Bell, Elizabeth Bisland, Agnes Smith Lewis, and Margaret Dunlop Gibson—whose extraordinary journeys have all but disappeared from popular stories.
Seven-layer installation | Photo credit: Special Arrangement
“We came across the journeys of six women, remarkable journeys that changed the world as we know it. But no one talked about these journeys,” says Karisma. “We decided to map them and celebrate them through our fiber.”
Works created for the Vatican in 2025 are now being shown in India for the first time. But in Mumbai, the idea of mapping is expanding. The museum has an extensive collection of rare maps documenting the city’s evolution, and Karishma and the Chanakya team are using these stories as the starting point for a much larger installation.
On the way to Dr. Bhau Daji Lad’s Museum | Photo credit: Special Arrangement
The main installation unfolds through seven layers of cartographic drawings made in thread, reminiscent of Mumbai’s earliest form as Heptanesia – the seven islands that existed before reclamation united them into the city we know. From here, the work traces the transformation of Mumbai through reclamation, trade, cotton mills and the Art Deco waterfront.
The seven layers are important. They give the work a sense of accumulation, but are also evocative of how Mumbai itself is perceived. The city is constantly being built, rebuilt, restored and reinterpreted.
Gesture Garden at Chanakya Studio | Photo credit: Ryan Martis
And the material is not accidental. Cotton runs through the entire installation as fiber and history. “We have been working on this in cotton thanks to cotton mills,” says Karishma. The choice links the work’s physical material to one of the industries that helped create modern Mumbai, while references to trade and exchange point to the city’s former role as a meeting place for people, goods and ideas.
“This ode to Mumbai is especially [meaningful] because this is the city where I was born and raised. This is the city of Chanakya,” says Karisma. “I hope to somehow capture the chaos but also the connected energy of the city.”
It is this connected energy that makes the installation look like a portrait.
For Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, managing trustee and director emeritus of the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum and an art historian and curator, this movement between histories is also central to what the museum is trying to do. “I tried very hard to break down the barrier between art and craft. It’s a colonial legacy,” she says. “In the Indian tradition, art and craft were one… You were artisans. You were also artisans. You were also artists.”
Gesture Garden at Chanakya Studio | Photo credit: Ryan Martis
This difference has consequences. Craft has traditionally been discussed through conservation, craftsmanship and tradition, while contemporary art is given a more glamorous vocabulary of ideas and concepts. En Route deliberately opposes this hierarchy. “Doing the research, putting it all together, and then turning those ideas into these wonderful works of art—and they truly are works of art,” Mehta says.
Let’s get together
On the way to Dr. Bhau Daji Lad’s Museum | Photo credit: RYAN MARTIS
The relationship between Chanakya and Maria Grazia Chiuri, who was present at the opening, is at an important stage in this evolution. Their professional collaboration spans decades, from Chiuri’s work with Chanakya on embroidery to her work at Dior. When she became creative director of Dior’s womenswear department in 2016, the relationship grew into a much broader dialogue between fashion, craft and artistic practice. Chiuri has since returned to Fendi, where she is now creative director, but her connection to Mumbai and Chanakya remains part of the story.
“Mumbai is inspiring. Every time I come here, I see how the city has evolved and how that evolution is interpreted through work. There is something about the working hands of the people here that reflects the working hands of the artisans. It brings seriousness to what I do and I truly appreciate the extraordinary skill of Indian craftsmen,” she says.
The idea of passing knowledge from hand to hand is taking place through the ‘Garden of Gestures’ at Chanakya Atelier in Byculla, which will continue until September 30. Drawing on the ancient Indian garden traditions of Upvana, Tapovana and Kunj, the exhibition shows how knowledge is first observed, then practiced and ultimately internalized by the body. It’s about what happens when a gesture is repeated so many times that it ceases to be perceived as a technique and becomes an instinct.
In the center are seven large sculptures of Saptamatrika – Seven Mothers, made of bamboo, raffia and cotton. Their shapes are created through weaving, basket weaving, knotting, braiding, winding, and herringbone and twill structures.
Owned by Experimenter, Colaba | Photo credit: Ryan Martis
There is also an exhibition called Belong at Experimenter, which will be on view until October 17th. This is the first solo exhibition of the Chanakya School at Experimenter’s Colaba and the second solo exhibition at the gallery. Here it becomes almost impossible to separate the hand from the object. Threads, beads and fibers accumulate until the textile begins to behave like landscape, architecture or sculpture. Organic cotton and silk threads, glass and recycled beads create a dense surface; Coconut, banana and jute fibers are woven, twisted, tied, wrapped and woven into shapes that take up space rather than just hanging on the wall.
The result is a change in the scale assumption. Something monumental doesn’t necessarily start with something monumental. It can all start with one thread, a knot, a repeating stitch, a hand learning the same movement over and over again.
