A single millimetre. That is the margin of tolerance at which the artisans at Chanakya School of Craft are expected to work. It is a strangely revealing number for an organisation now presenting monumental works of fibre, sculpture and embroidery. The scale may have changed, but the principle has not: the spectacular is built from tiny, repeated acts of attention.
The Chanakya craftspeople
| Photo Credit:
Hashim Badani
This September, Chanakya International marks 40 years since its founding, alongside a decade of the Chanakya Foundation and School of Craft, with three exhibitions across Mumbai.En Route at the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum runs from September 8 to October 20; Garden of Gestures at the Chanakya ateliers till September 30; and Belong at Experimenter, Colaba, from September 10 to October 17. Together, they offer something more interesting than an anniversary retrospective. They trace how a Mumbai embroidery atelier became a cultural practice spanning fashion, education, research and contemporary art and, along the way, ask why craft is still so often treated as something adjacent to art rather than part of it.
