Not a consumer? You can still support craft!

If craft is to remain relevant, not just as heritage but as a living ecosystem, we must rethink how we relate to it, writes Nisha Vikram

When we talk about supporting craft, the first thought that comes to mind is to buy more of it. More sarees, more pottery, more cushions, more block-printed whatever; consumption that comes disguised as culture. And yet, even the well-intentioned visitor to our annual craft fairs will tell you how much the price of handmade objects has risen. Pieces once made for local use now live only in Instagram reels of homes of the very rich.

So, in this scenario, how do we engage with craft? At its heart, craft is not the product — it is the process. It is generational wisdom made tangible: a lesson in history and geography, a relationship between skill and memory, form and function, a way of life, almost the genetic code of an artisan.

Rural Indian woman wearing traditional costume painting a clay handmade vase at handicraft fair at Kolkata

In pre-colonial India, craft was rarely about ornamentation, except perhaps for royal commissions. Mostly, it was about need. In a village fair in Bihar, you might buy a hand-carved thekua mould to use and treasure for decades; in Kerala, you’d replenish the cracked urli that cooks the meen curry; up in the mountains, a Patua shawl might be woven on custom order for a Kullvi bride who will cherish and wear it for all important occasions through her life; in Punjab, a Phulkari shawl might be painstakingly embroidered by the women of the family years before a girl’s wedding. In all these examples, makers and users belonged to the same social fabric, and their work was essential to the rhythm of everyday life.

Today, that context has changed. The artisan often creates for someone far removed from their world, someone like you or me. Their work circulates in markets that prize scarcity, beauty, and prestige. And somewhere along the way, the relationship between maker and buyer has become purely transactional, sometimes even extractive.
But must it be?

Reframing the relationship

Supporting craft doesn’t always have to mean buying craft. While there are obvious measures — commissioning a repair instead of replacing something like mending a torn silk saree with an embroidery patch, or even buying better and buying less, there are other ways to create a bigger impact:

A female artisan busy at work inside Saras Mela fairground, held at Newtown, Kolkata.

Visiting craft museums and immersive experience centres rather than just shopping. For example, the Kunj in Delhi is a major cultural-retail complex dedicated to Indian handicrafts and handlooms, designed to help visitors engage with the process and story, not just product. Closer to home, The Loom-Miraya Greens, an immersive textile experience centre in Bengaluru, lets visitors have a hands-on experience with weaving. Dhaatu, a puppet exhibition, showcases traditional puppets and puppetry performances from across India.

Studying crafts to develop a deeper understanding of them: Online resources like MAP Academy (with textile and craft history courses) and platforms like MeMeraki (which offer recorded craft masterclasses) make this possible from the comfort of your own home.

Attending workshops to understand a technique — not to master it, but to appreciate the labour and the potential that crafts hold.

This idea lies at the heart of Craft Forward, a month-long exploration I’m curating at Courtyard Koota, Bengaluru. The goal is to see craft as potential, not nostalgia. Highlights include Pattachitra-style satirical comic illustrations, dream-like contemporary Cheriyal mask installations, workshops on the math behind weaving, movement and Warli painting, and talks by people who have used crafts in fields like animation and conservation. The showstopper is a theatre performance by contemporary theatre professionals and traditional shadow puppeteers from Nimmalakunte village in Andhra Pradesh.

Each of these experiences invites the question: What happens when we move beyond buying and start participating? When we learn, question, and create alongside the maker?

Valuing artisans as teachers, thinkers, and innovators — not only as producers.
Can artisans be teachers? Can our children learn mathematics on the loom, or anatomy through puppetry? In the Koota exhibition at Craft Forward, crafts are shown in logo design, packaging, and animation, thereby demonstrating that craft need not exist in a silo, but be an equal participant in the modern world.

Living the contradiction

Of course, I don’t have all the answers. At work, each project I work on surfaces this contradiction within me. Sometimes I justify the scale of a mural by its longevity. Sometimes I wonder: Are we innovating or simply consuming differently?
Over time, I have also come to realise that some of the most beautiful things are not meant to be owned. They are only meant to be admired, understood and respected. When we watch an artisan at work, when we listen to the rhythm of the loom or the hammering of a punch, we become witnesses, not consumers. We participate in a continuum that connects us to time, material, and imagination.

If craft is to remain relevant, not just as heritage but as a living ecosystem, we must rethink how we relate to it. Not as saviours or collectors, but as co-inhabitants of a shared world.

So maybe the question isn’t what we can buy, but what we can learn, share, and keep alive.

The writer is the curator of the Craft Forward exhibition being held at Courtyard Koota, Bengaluru.