Artist
Chanakya School
Experimenter
Biography
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).
Editions
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