Design Mumbai and the Indian creatives to watch

It would be easy enough to tell you that Indian design is having a moment. But it is more that it has had several moments over several years, which have failed to be fully recognised internationally. With few exceptions, Indian designers have not shown at the biggest international design trade shows such as Salone del Mobile in Milan, but that’s because their business was elsewhere and shipping costs from India were prohibitive, not because the work itself didn’t exist.

However, with the advent of more international studios and initiatives, Indian design is entering the world map, and this autumn is set to be a pivotal moment, centred around the city of Mumbai.

For the past 12 years, India has boasted a design fair in New Delhi focused on interiors titled India Design ID – now featuring more than 100 design exhibitors across interiors, furniture, lighting, kitchens and homeware. Organised by Ogaan Media, which publishes ELLE Decor India, it could be compared to the UK’s Decorex show, and is renowned for its annual award recognising India’s top architects and interior designers. A highlight is always its symposium, which earlier this year in Delhi featured voices such as architects Peter Zumthor in conversation with Bijoy Jain and Odile Decq.

For the first time this September, the exhibition expands to Mumbai, taking place at Jio World Gardens in Bandra Kurla Complex, the city’s upmarket business district. It isn’t the only design fair in India’s most populous city this year, though.

A new fair, Design Mumbai took place in the same location (6-9 November), aiming to attract international exhibitors alongside Indian designers. It’s the brainchild of Ian Rudge, co-founder of London fair 100% Design, Michael Dynan, co-founder of Design Shanghai, and Piyush Suri, founder of Handmade in Britain. Suri, who lives between London and Berlin and studied at Central Saint Martins before setting up his company 17 years ago, says he’d been thinking about launching an Indian design fair for years.

Mumbai has an established film and fashion world as well as a growing design scene, so it felt an obvious location. ‘There is a divide between Indian design and designers from Europe, and I would like to see Indian designers and international designers on the same platform,’ he explains. ‘It’s not about international brands coming to sell to wealthy customers, but to make this show a destination and raise awareness about Indian design.’

The fair aimed to distinguish itself from Design ID by being the first in India to promote an international focus. Indian design brands such as FAZO Project, Andblack Design, AKFD Studio and Studio Avni exhibited alongside European brands such as Poltrona Frau, Vitra and Fern and Ade (an Indian dealer of European furniture which will be exhibiting the likes of &Tradition and Louis Poulsen). The split between India and global brands was roughly 50-50 and there were around 100 designers showing this year in total.

Alongside the fair, there was a handful of creative commissions, including a pavilion by Studio Saar, a studio headed up by Ananya Singhal and Jonny Buckland. ‘The design scene in India is shooting up and it’s important for Indian designers to feel they are part of an international community, so as soon as I heard about Design Mumbai, I wanted to support,’ says Singhal. His project was at a concept stage when we spoke, but but concept drawings showed a pavilion with a tessellated canopy with planters and a seating area beneath it. The canopy’s sections were made from different types of Indian cotton, from khadi to shirt fabric.

‘In India there is often a feeling that sustainable architecture needs to look sustainable – like bamboo tied together – but there’s another way of looking at sustainability,’ Singhal explains. ‘Design can be sleek even though it is sustainable; we’re already thinking about the afterlife of the pavilion.’ It will be modular so that it can be deconstructed after the fair. One-third of it will go to a public garden in Udaipur, Rajasthan, and two-thirds are destined to be used as seating spaces for staff at factories belonging to Studio Saar’s parent company.

Sustainability was also a key concern in a project the studio completed earlier this year. Third Space in Udaipur is a community and cultural centre housed by non-profit Dharohar, which combines many public uses: a place for learning, craft practice, leisure activities such as a climbing wall, performing arts and co-working. The exterior of the building is distinctive for its permeable wrapping made of perforated white marble that filters light like jali (decorative window grilles), with cut-outs from the screens used as floor tiles. The inside flows from open spaces to clusters of rooms reminiscent of a haveli, which is a typology of home with an internal courtyard. Its woven-bamboo canopy is a low-cost, low carbon form of shading that covers the adventure playground.

There is a feeling that, however established Indian design is, a galvanising moment is catapulting it into a new consciousness. Sustainability will be core to that, but also, just as importantly, craft.

Craft has always been a strong area of innovation in India, and an awareness of its potential has been growing internationally. The Chanakya School of Craft, established by Karishma Swali in 2016 as a non-profit offering craft education to women of all ages and socio-economic backgrounds, produces exquisite textiles that have led to collaborations with artists includiing Judy Chicago and fashion houses such as Dior, Loewe and Gucci. ‘Cosmic Garden’, an exhibition at this year’s Venice Biennale, saw the school collaborate with Indian artist couple Madhvi and Manu Parekh, whose work draws on Indian folktales to fuse modernism and craft.

This autumn, the Mumbai-based gallery Æquō, founded by Tarini Jindal, a patron of the arts in India and founder of the Kanoria Centre of Arts residency, took part in PAD London for the first time, seeking to bring together international designers such as Brussels- and Antwerp-based Destroyers/Builders, Sao Paolo’s Estúdio Campana, American Kelly Wearstler and Lisbon-based Garcé & Dimofski to work with Indian craft through commissions that will greatly appeal to international collectors. Unfortunately, not all projects of this kind are willing to credit their Indian craft collaborators by name, raising a question mark over the degree to which there is a genuine platform for Indian craft.

Florence Louisy, the studio’s creative director, who has also created pieces for the gallery in partnership with workshops in India, believes this transcontinental making experience only serves to improve the design world. ‘There is a cultural difference that could enrich both sides,’ she says. ‘There is so much to learn if we connect the workshops with knowledge from different parts of the world.’

Also preoccupied with both craft and sustainability is architect Vinu Daniel of Wallmakers, who is on a mission to shift the narrative of architecture via smart reuse. His philosophy is a reaction to the postcolonial era, when he feels India took up globalisation excessively to pander to Western expectations. ‘This was something that was very much prevalent even up to the 2000s, but post 2010-15 a small breakout of designers, like me, were influenced by Gandhian philosophy,’ he says. ‘I had a chance encounter with British architect Laurie Baker, who reminded me that if you build with materials you find within a five-mile radius you will achieve swaraj [self-rule, the highest spiritual state of mind]. This Gandhian concept isn’t just about freedom, it’s about sustainability.’

Wallmakers strives to put local materials first and has experimented with constructing using uncooked mud. At Chuzhi house in Tamil Nadu, which is hidden beneath the earth and built directly on to a rock face, it made spiralling beams out of a composite comprising 4,000 discarded plastic bottles.

The future of Indian design might appear, seen from the ivory towers of Europe, to be about achieving global reach. To my mind, though, it will be about disruptive and creative approaches to sustainability and craft, with medium-sized design studios leading that charge. Design fairs are an important platform, but historically they certainly don’t put sustainability first. The ones that are willing to champion and learn from the culturally diverse yet locally grounded solutions put forward by designers are most likely to leave a mark. Not just in India, but everywhere.