Jodhpur Arts Week Edition 1.0 Centers Craft in Contemporary Practice

Jodhpur Arts Week, which launches its Edition 1.0 next month, is a contemporary art festival as well as an exploration of authorship, memory and place. While the upcoming edition, which runs October 1-7, is ostensibly the first, it builds on last year’s Special Projects Edition, which, in a successful proof of concept, drew a crowd of 45,000 to Rajasthan’s Blue City. Having tapped curators Tapiwa Matsinde and Sakhshi Mahajan to helm this year’s festival, the Public Arts Trust of India (founded by philanthropist and collector Sana Rezwan) is now looking to create something more enduring: a model of cultural programming that proactively contextualizes contemporary practice through convergence with the living local heritage.

Many of the international artists and designers who trekked to the edge of the Thar Desert for Jodhpur Arts Week have been working with the city’s master weavers, embroiderers, metalworkers and woodcarvers. The result is a collision of ancestral skill and contemporary gesture, where community members are co-authors. The title of this year’s curatorial exhibition—“Hath Ro Hunar,” or “skill of the hand” in Marwari—is apt, as the festival positions artisan knowledge not as peripheral to contemporary art but as foundational to it.

Indeed, Jodhpur Arts Week stands out among the many art weeks around the globe in its rejection of the hierarchy that too often denigrates traditional art forms as craft, somehow separate from what we deem fine art. This is a festival that breaks down silos, melding experimental practice with heritage technique and encouraging visiting artists and Jodhpur’s craftspeople to engage with each other as peers.

This year’s visiting artists and designers include Awdhesh Tamrakar, Aku Zeliang, Gaspard Combes, Anitha N. Reddy, Theo Pinto, Zavier Wong Zhen Rui, Chila Kumari Singh Burman and the Raqs Media Collective. Each will produce site-specific installations that live and breathe the textures of the city, and their output promises to be process-forward, fusing ancestral techniques with materials and methods utilized by contemporary makers. Observer caught up with Mahajan and Matsinde to hear more about how they approached putting together Jodhpur Arts Week Edition 1.0 and what we can expect from future editions.

The festival is billed as an exchange. How will the relationship between Jodhpur’s local craft traditions and the global contemporary art and design projects be expressed in practice? 

Sakhshi Mahajan: Jodhpur Arts Week’s site-specific and site-responsive works have developed through two distinct methodologies. Some emerged from immersive recce trips, where invited artists engaged deeply with Jodhpur’s visual, ethnographic, artisanal and cultural histories, closely observing its architecture, craft practices and everyday life. Others took shape during extended residencies that enabled sustained exchange between contemporary creators and traditional artisans, allowing techniques, tools and ideas to move fluidly between them. In both approaches, the process remains as visible as the product, and nearly all works are at least partially fabricated locally.

I connected with contemporary practitioners whose work is rooted in tradition, whether through storytelling, cultural mythology and oral histories, or through materials and methods tied to heritage techniques, indigenous practices and craft knowledge, not limited to the Marwar region.

Tapiwa Matsinde: Bringing artist/designer and artisan together to inspire and learn from each other, Jodhpur Arts Week has provided fertile ground for collaborative creative expression. This has unfolded through a unique immersive experience into Jodhpur’s rich artisanal heritage and vibrant culture. A hands-on experience that has extended beyond the craft workshops and into exploring the culture, architecture, layered histories and biodiversity of the city. Innovation played its part as the designers and artisans connected not only in person but across screens, at times employing technological connectivity to explore the capabilities of the age-old techniques.

The end result is a reflection of the collaboration between artist/designer and artisan as each work and installation expresses their individual voices collectively.

And how do ‘thinkers’ fit into the program? 

Mahajan and Matsinde: Understanding the historical and cultural legacy of Jodhpur has been the foundation on which we’ve built this program. The region’s layered and continually transforming histories have shaped not only what we do, but how we do it.

Extensive research conducted by our team on the ground has been invaluable for the creatives who have joined the program. The researchers, historians, archivists and cultural specialists have provided critical context and conceptual frameworks that have inspired and informed the makers. Members of our own team, from assistant curators to junior coordinators, are building a growing, accessible repository of knowledge on craft traditions and cultural legacies from the region.

Thinkers within the program include cultural, educational and archival partners. Learning through Arts Narrative and Discourse (LAND) brings a pedagogical lens, working with schools to reimagine how heritage, craft and contemporary art can be integrated into everyday learning. The Mehrangarh Museum and Sardar Museum Archives and curators provide deep historical context, offering primary resources and material references for the various creators. Kuldeep Kothari and Arna Jharna Museum adds a perspective that connects ecology, labor, crafts and social history, reminding us that culture is inseparable from the everyday environments and community practices that sustain it.

The theme of the festival, “Hath Ro Hunar—Skill of the Hand,” places craft at the center. How did you weave that into your curatorial approach? 

Mahajan: Through theoretical, practical and anthropological research, it became clear that artisans sustain centuries-old practices despite systemic challenges: informal work arrangements, limited institutional support, seasonal and unpredictable incomes, gendered inequities and minimal access to contemporary markets or education. This became a point of departure, prompting us to consider how art/ design practitioners can reflect with sensitivity and collaborate with intention, rather than simply intervene in or appropriate these legacies.

Matsinde: It was imperative that artists/designers coming into local artisanal communities did so from a place of respect. Honoring the skills of the master artisan while seeking to elevate and contribute their creative voices to the evolution of Jodhpur’s local craft heritages that have survived generations. The theme raises awareness of these skills that are in danger of dying out, and bringing artist/designer and artisan together helps find ways of keeping these skills alive and relevant, and encouraging upcoming generations to see the value in taking them up.

How can initiatives like this influence institutions, collectors, and the wider ecosystem to rethink hierarchies that place strict boundaries between art and craft? 

Mahajan and Matsinde: Hath Ro Hunar foregrounds the skill of the hand, insisting on recognition for all contributors to the work while challenging entrenched hierarchies between “low” and “high” arts, a colonial inheritance that still shapes perception. The project celebrates labor, skill, knowledge and materiality as critical elements of cultural memory, interrogating the intersections of the traditional and the contemporary, and the visible and invisible makers who sustain creative practices and cultural heritage.

By creating community-engaged workshops and inviting audiences to actively participate, the festival exposes collectors, institutions and the public to the processes behind each work. Audiences encounter artisans as masters of their craft, learning directly from them and witnessing the skill, labor and knowledge involved. By respecting the maker’s authority and avoiding imposition, the festival dismantles hierarchical distinctions between art, design and craft.

Which artworks, installations or discussions are you most excited about? 

Mahajan: I am excited about Chila Kumari Singh Burman’s debut site-specific neon installation in India at Toorji Ka Jhalra, a mid-18th-century stepwell commissioned by Rani Tawarji. Her Well Speaks / उणी बावड़ी बोल, created in collaboration with skilled neon artisan Abid Shah, is celebratory, playful and visually stunning while also highlighting marginalized histories and feminist narratives. I am looking forward to seeing her work animate this centuries-old architecture.

Matsinde: “The Siddi Women Quilters,” in collaboration with arts practitioner and historian Anitha N. Reddy, is an exciting and deeply moving presentation. One that speaks to having the courage to embrace new experiences that have been embedded into their artworks. As participants in the Jodhpur Arts Week Residency, Siddi women quilters Ladamabi Mandvekar, Husenbi Jamadar and Hattarabi Gunjavati have stepped outside their community for the first time to engage with other artisans. Their hand-stitched textile panels reflect journeys, memories and shared knowledge.

Mahajan and Matsinde: Jodhpur Arts Week has been full of firsts—first-time collaborations, experiences and debut presentations, so there’s so much to be excited about. What excites both of us the most is seeing how all the installations come together and how audiences interact with them, especially since this is the very first edition of Jodhpur Arts Week.

Do you see Jodhpur Arts Week serving as a model for how art weeks in other heritage-rich cities could facilitate interdisciplinary dialogue? 

Mahajan: Absolutely. Our curatorial approach places Jodhpur’s community, history and traditions at the heart of the project, ensuring that the Arts Week generates tangible, meaningful impact within the city itself. By prioritizing creating value for the local community, we believe that small, micro-level interventions can eventually have broader, macro effects. A key part of this is building awareness of Jodhpur’s archives and cultural resources, and ensuring that the majority of production, whether for artworks or the event itself, is carried out locally.

Matsinde: Jodhpur Arts Week is part of a growing network of art weeks, but what sets it apart is its emphasis on active engagement with heritage, craftsmanship and the city’s cultural legacy. The central element of our approach is honoring and activating this legacy, creating spaces where interdisciplinary dialogue can flourish in ways that are deeply rooted in place.

Looking ahead, what possibilities do you see for expanding or evolving the festival? 

Mahajan and Matsinde: Looking ahead, we hope that future editions of the festival will attract more local and global partners, including creators, decision-makers, sponsors, patrons and venues. We also envision the expansion of opportunities for residences and collaborative projects within the local region, deepening engagement with Jodhpur’s communities and cultural landscape.