Experimenter presents Trace, Chanakya School’s debut solo exhibition in India. Through deep engagement with diverse indigenous textile techniques, material investigation, and inherited knowledge systems, Chanakya School’s practice, led by Karishma Swali, forms a conduit between contemporary thought and ancient processes.
The exhibition serves in equal parts an exploration of their interconnected textile histories, as it serves a repository of understanding the residues of the human hand imprinted in thread over time. Few human inventions carry our imprint across time as intimately as cloth—through cultures and centuries, textile has absorbed the personal alongside the collective, becoming a palimpsest of human experience where stories are deposited, layered, and preserved. For Chanakya School, these stories are not abstract—they carry the customs of a place, the rituals of daily life, and the social codes that shape communal identity. To trace a line of thread therefore, for the collective, is to follow an unbroken lineage of knowledge, even a physiological map or a chronological archive of our history that binds people to land, to one another, and to their communities.
At its core, Trace throws light on Chanakya School’s continued exploration of the human condition, of women’s autonomy, and their decades-long immersion in upholding generational knowledge transmission through textile. Like a trace over time, the works in the exhibition build deeply layered impressions created weave upon weave, bead upon bead, thread upon thread, and knot upon knot rooted in the natural world, human emotions, and the arc of life itself.
The exhibition serves in equal parts an exploration of their interconnected textile histories, as it serves a repository of understanding the residues of the human hand imprinted in thread over time. Few human inventions carry our imprint across time as intimately as cloth—through cultures and centuries, textile has absorbed the personal alongside the collective, becoming a palimpsest of human experience where stories are deposited, layered, and preserved. For Chanakya School, these stories are not abstract—they carry the customs of a place, the rituals of daily life, and the social codes that shape communal identity. To trace a line of thread therefore, for the collective, is to follow an unbroken lineage of knowledge, even a physiological map or a chronological archive of our history that binds people to land, to one another, and to their communities.
At its core, Trace throws light on Chanakya School’s continued exploration of the human condition, of women’s autonomy, and their decades-long immersion in upholding generational knowledge transmission through textile. Like a trace over time, the works in the exhibition build deeply layered impressions created weave upon weave, bead upon bead, thread upon thread, and knot upon knot rooted in the natural world, human emotions, and the arc of life itself.
Founded in 2016, the Chanakya School is a Mumbai-based non-profit institution and artist collective that extends the legacy of Chanakya International, a textile house with a four-decade history in elevating and preserving India’s cultural heritage through craft excellence. Under the artistic direction of Karishma Swali—whose thirty years of sustained engagement with craft informs its ethos—education, research, and material exploration are brought into a shared practice.
The school functions as both a site of learning and experimentation, placing women’s practices and intergenerational knowledge at the centre of cultural inquiry. Working across weaving, hand embroidery, lacemaking, stone carving, and ceramics, the school integrates pedagogy with material research through an interdisciplinary approach. Drawing on more than 300 embroidery and weaving traditions, it perpetuates craft as a critical mode of contemporary expression. Since its founding, its school has trained over 1400 women.
Recent institutional presentations include Indigo: The Sky Below (2025) at the Mobilier National, Paris; En Route (2025) at the Vatican Apostolic Library, Rome; and Cosmic Garden (2024), presented as a Collateral Event of the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia (2024).
