Designed by MeMeraki: Reimagining Traditional Art Through Collaboration
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Introduction
Traditional Indian art forms carry more than a recognisable visual language. They carry knowledge: how a material behaves, how a motif is constructed, how a story is translated into an image, and how techniques are passed from one generation to the next.
For MeMeraki, working with these traditions is not limited to presenting existing artworks. There is also an opportunity to explore what happens when master artists and a contemporary design team work together to create something new.
Designed by MeMeraki is built around this idea of co-creation. The collection brings together MeMeraki's in-house design team and master artists to develop contemporary artworks rooted in Indian artistic traditions. The work can involve rethinking the visual language of an artform, bringing two distinct practices into one composition, manipulating an established visual structure, or exploring how traditional techniques can take on a new context.
The process begins with the artist and the artform. From there, it becomes a conversation between artistic knowledge and design thinking, with both shaping the final work. The intention is not simply to make traditional art look contemporary, but to understand how far its possibilities can be explored while remaining true to the craft.
“We wanted to create contemporary interpretations of traditional pieces, but make them concept-heavy and not just about aesthetics.”
- Debobarni Das, Lead Designer
Beginning With the Artist
A traditional artform cannot be separated from the knowledge of the artist who practises it. This is why collaboration with master artists is central to the Designed by MeMeraki process. MeMeraki's network brings together more than 500 master artisans across India, working across hundreds of traditional artforms. Their expertise provides the foundation from which new works can be developed.
The role of the design team is to work alongside this expertise rather than simply translate an existing craft into a contemporary-looking object. Understanding the artistic language comes first: its techniques, materials, visual vocabulary and the possibilities within the practice. From there, the conversation can move towards what the new artwork could become.
This distinction matters. When traditional art is used only as a visual reference, its motifs can easily become detached from the knowledge and context that produced them. Co-creation offers a different approach. The artist remains an active part of the process, bringing their practice into a conversation with new design directions.
That exchange can also work in both directions. A contemporary design brief may introduce an artist to a form, composition or application they have not explored before, while the possibilities and limitations of the craft can change the original design idea. The process becomes a way for the design team to learn about the artform as much as it is a way for the artist to explore a new direction.
“We were excited to try something we had never done before. The process gave us a chance to experiment with the artform, while also discovering new possibilities within our own practice.”
- Artist, MeMeraki
When Two Artistic Practices Meet
Co-creation can also happen between artforms. Some Designed by MeMeraki works bring together practices that originate in different regions and have their own techniques, materials and histories. The objective is not simply to place two crafts next to each other, but to understand how their individual qualities can contribute to the same composition.
This approach has resulted in combinations such as Zardozi with Kalamkari, Pichwai and Madhubani, as well as Madhubani with Soojni. Each combination creates a different relationship between technique and image. In the Zardozi works, for instance, embroidery can be used to amplify particular subjects and elements within the larger artwork rather than functioning as an additional decorative layer. The result is a dialogue between the painted or drawn visual language and the surface, texture and dimensionality introduced by embroidery.
The Madhubani and Soojni combination explores the same idea while also creating a more accessible way to experience two craft traditions together. More labour-intensive combinations such as Kalamkari with Zardozi or Pichwai with Zardozi can naturally occupy a higher price point. Bringing Madhubani and Soojni together allows the collection to explore the meeting of two artforms while retaining the integrity of both practices.
The experiments extend beyond surface-based practices as well. The combination of Dokra and patch embroidery brings sculpture and textile together within one framed composition. The original idea involved the visual language of Kutch copper bells, but the team eventually explored Dokra to achieve the form. The Dokra was shaped to resemble bells cut through the centre and joined together, creating a sculptural element that could sit seamlessly alongside the embroidery.
These combinations are also a reminder that collaboration does not mean treating different craft traditions as interchangeable. Each retains its own material qualities, techniques and history. The design process creates the conditions for them to meet while allowing those differences to remain visible.
“We also wanted to see how far we could stretch and push the boundaries of a craft, while still being true to the craft itself.”
- Swarnima Soni, Designer
From an Idea to an Artwork
The final artwork may appear complete and resolved, but co-creation begins much earlier. At MeMeraki, the process can move from an initial idea through conversations, experimentation and refinement before the final composition is created. The design team works with the artist to explore how the intended direction can be translated through the chosen artform.
This can involve considering the composition, materials, palette, scale or narrative of the artwork. Depending on the project, different possibilities may be explored before arriving at the final direction. Sometimes the change is subtle, such as using embroidery to draw attention to a particular element. In other cases, the intervention can fundamentally alter how the artwork is experienced.
Dusk Till Dawn explores composition through the relationship between two frames. The pair of embroidered works is designed so that elements from one artwork continue into the other, and vice versa, creating a visual exchange between the two pieces. Rather than treating each frame as a completely independent composition, the artwork asks the viewer to move between them and notice how the two come together as one larger idea. It is another example of how co-design allows traditional techniques to be approached through new ways of composing and experiencing an artwork.
These interventions demonstrate that contemporising a traditional artwork does not necessarily require changing its visual vocabulary. Sometimes the intervention can happen through the way the composition is structured, divided or experienced.
The process is therefore iterative rather than linear. The idea informs the craft, and the craft informs the idea. A concept that works on paper may need to change when translated through a particular material or technique, while an unexpected possibility within the craft may open up an entirely new direction for the design.
“The artist's practice is not just helping us execute the idea. It can actually change the idea itself.”
- Debobarni Das, Lead Designer
Contemporising Without Erasing
There is a difference between contemporising an artform and stripping it of what makes it distinctive. For MeMeraki, contemporisation can mean exploring a new composition, narrative, material combination or context while retaining the artistic language at its core.
The Miniature and Pichwai series, developed with artist Shehzad Ali Sherani, is one example of this approach. The work explores a new visual language and narrative while drawing from established traditions of Pichwai and Kishangarh Miniature. Another experiment reimagines Miniature art through Bollywood movie posters, taking a familiar contemporary cultural reference and placing it within the visual framework of a traditional painting practice.
Other works approach the same question through subject and context. A set of four miniature works based on old city plans of Hyderabad, for instance, uses the miniature tradition to explore the city's architectural history. Architectural elements and patterns associated with Qutb Shahi, Nawabi and Islamic styles are amplified within the compositions, while references to Hyderabad's pearl culture draw from motifs used by Kalamkari artists to depict pearls. The traditional artform becomes a way of interpreting the city rather than simply reproducing an established miniature subject.
The River Series takes another route. Across four works, rivers are explored as carriers of culture, looking at how waterways connect people, places and traditions. The river becomes a way of thinking about cultural movement and exchange, making the subject itself part of the larger idea of confluence.
These experiments create different points of entry into traditional art. A viewer might encounter a familiar contemporary reference, a city, a river or a new compositional structure before discovering the artistic tradition behind it. The intention is not to replace the historical context of the artform, but to create another way into it.
A traditional artform does not have to remain confined to one kind of subject, audience or setting for its identity to remain intact. It can enter new contexts while the knowledge behind the practice continues to shape the work.
Designing Across Regions, Materials and Histories
One of the possibilities of working across India's artistic traditions is that collaboration does not have to remain within the boundaries of one region or one technique. Bringing different practices together can reveal relationships between materials, visual languages and cultural contexts that may not otherwise be explored.
The framed mask works approach this through both object and textile. Traditional masks are paired with textiles from their respective regions or traditions, allowing the frame itself to become part of the cultural context of the artwork. A mask can be backed with Gamcha, a Chhau mask with Jamdani, and a Ghoomar mask with Baluchari. The textile is therefore not simply functioning as a decorative background. It creates another connection between the object, its regional context and another form of Indian craft.
The same thinking can be seen in the combinations of Zardozi with Kalamkari, Pichwai and Madhubani, or Dokra with patch embroidery. The practices are not treated as interchangeable. Instead, their differences become part of the design.
This becomes particularly relevant when creating work for contemporary interiors. A designer may be working with a particular scale, palette, materiality or visual character, while a traditional artform provides the artistic foundation. Co-creation allows the final work to respond to the requirements of its intended space without reducing the artform to a decorative reference.
Creating New Possibilities for Artists and Artforms
The value of co-creation extends beyond the artwork itself. For artists, working on contemporary collaborations can create opportunities to engage with new audiences, formats and spaces. It can also allow them to explore possibilities within their practice that may not have emerged through their traditional body of work.
The Tree of Life in Ikkat is one such example. The artist had not previously created this particular interpretation, which introduced slightly more contemporary elements into the subject. The collaboration therefore became an opportunity to develop something new while remaining rooted in the technique and knowledge of double ikat.
For the artform, these collaborations can create new applications and interpretations. A practice traditionally encountered in one context can become part of a contemporary collection, an interior, a hospitality environment or a new kind of artwork. For audiences, this can provide an accessible entry point into an artistic tradition they may not have encountered before.
The design process adds value by giving the work a specific context and purpose, while the artist's practice remains central to how it is made. The resulting artwork is neither simply a traditional object nor a contemporary design that borrows traditional motifs. It sits between the two.
From Revival to Reinvention
Not every contemporary engagement with traditional art needs to begin with a new interpretation. MeMeraki's Revival Series takes a different approach by bringing paintings from centuries past back to life. Some works are recreated in collaboration with the families of the original artists, allowing an artistic legacy to continue through a new generation.
One example is Mehrab, a revival piece rooted in Machilipatnam Kalamkari.
Revival and co-creation serve different purposes, but they share an underlying idea: traditional artistic knowledge can continue to exist through active engagement rather than being treated as something confined to the past. Where revival looks back to preserve and carry forward an existing artistic legacy, co-creation looks at what else can be developed from the knowledge that already exists.
Both approaches create another context for traditional art to be encountered today, whether by carrying an existing work forward or by asking what new forms can emerge from the same artistic knowledge.
The Design Team as a Bridge
In a co-creation model, the design team occupies a position between different requirements. There is the artistic practice and the knowledge of the master artist. There is the intended context of the artwork. There are considerations of composition, scale, material and palette. And there is the question of how the final work will be experienced by its audience.
The design team's role is to bring these considerations into the same conversation. That requires understanding both sides: what the space or collection needs, and what is possible within the artist's practice.
The strongest collaborations emerge when neither side is treated as secondary. The artist brings years, and often generations, of knowledge about the artform. The design team brings a contemporary brief and a framework through which that knowledge can be explored differently. The final artwork sits at the intersection of the two.
This also changes the role of design itself. Design is not simply the layer applied after the craft has been completed. It becomes part of the process through which the craft is questioned, explored and given a new context.
Why Co-Creation Matters
Traditional art survives through practice. It survives when knowledge is taught, when techniques continue to be used, when artists have opportunities to practise their craft, and when audiences continue to find meaning in the work.
Co-creation can contribute to that continuity by creating new reasons for traditional artistic practices to enter contemporary spaces and conversations. It can give artists the opportunity to work on new briefs, introduce traditional artforms to audiences outside their conventional contexts, and allow designers to work with authentic artistic practices rather than simply borrowing their visual vocabulary.
It can also demonstrate that engaging with heritage does not always mean reproducing the past exactly as it was. Sometimes, carrying a tradition forward means asking what else its knowledge can make possible.
The process itself can become part of that learning. When two practices meet, when an artist works with a material or format they have not previously explored, or when a traditional composition is restructured, the result can reveal possibilities that were not apparent at the beginning.
“Sometimes it was just an idea on paper, and we didn't know what form it would eventually take. That was probably the most interesting part of the process.”
- Swarnima Soni, Designer
Designed by MeMeraki: Carrying the Practice Forward
Designed by MeMeraki is ultimately about creating a space for this kind of exploration. Across Miniature and Pichwai, Kutch-inspired references and Dokra, Kalamkari and Zardozi, Madhubani and Soojni, double ikat, framed masks and the wider body of work developed with master artists, the approach begins with existing artistic knowledge and asks how it can enter a contemporary visual context.
The answer is different for every collaboration. Sometimes it is a new narrative, as with the River Series or the Hyderabad city plans. Sometimes it is a meeting of two craft traditions, as with Kalamkari and Zardozi or Madhubani and Soojni. Sometimes it is a new material relationship, such as Dokra and embroidery, or a new way of experiencing an existing composition through fragmented framing. Sometimes it is a new direction for an artist's practice, as with the Tree of Life in double ikat. And sometimes it is the revival of an older work and the continuation of an artist's legacy.
What remains constant is the collaboration itself.
Indian artistic traditions do not need to be preserved only as objects of the past. They can also be part of the making of what comes next. Designed by MeMeraki is one way of creating that future: by bringing master artists and contemporary design thinking to the same table, and giving traditional artforms the opportunity to speak in new contexts without losing the knowledge that makes them their own.
“For us, it's about seeing what else can be possible within the craft, without losing what makes the craft what it is.”
- Debobarni Das, Lead Designer
