“Our social identity is built quietly over years, to define our gender, body, clothing… behavior and disposition. We are compelled to live by unchallenged norms. We ‘become’ as ‘being’ is simply not enough. We don masks and armours, as we struggle with sexual, political, and religious confines. Society is not kind to rebels. They are the outcasts, the outsiders, and the mutinous,” says Swarup Dutta of his debut photography exhibition in Mumbai at ARTISANS’, Kala Ghoda.

Japanese artists Yukiko Yagi and Meguri Ichida bring the art of Urushi, traditional Japanese lacquerware, to ARTISANS’, adapted exclusively for the Indian table.

Traditional lacquerware from Japan is simple, graphic, almost stark. It is not just  luxury collectible, but demands use, inviting you to touch, to hold, to cup, to sip... The gleam of reflected light off a lacquered surface calls to the soul in search of stillness, and timelessness.