MGM Foundation x BEADS
Disharee Mathur is an artist and designer based in Jaipur (India). Her work lies at the intersection of traditional craft, material research, and design. Her primary media is circular ceramics in Jaipur Blue Pottery, which introduces industrial waste materials to create new recipes adapted by the traditional craft for cultural and economic sustainability.
Together with artisans and scientists, Disharee reimagines the indigenous craft with a material made of sanitary ware waste, allowing for new geometries in the ancient technique. Disharee grew up in Jaipur with a fascination for making and materials, naturally gravitating towards the crafts of Jaipur. She studied Interior Design at the Savannah College of Art and Design (USA,2017). She designed workplace interiors before pursuing Innovation Design Engineering at the Royal College of Art and Imperial College, London (UK, 2021). She founded Project New Blue as her thesis work while collaborating with scientists (at MNIT, Jaipur) and Jaipur Blue Pottery artisans in 2020-2021.
Disharee approaches waste as the abundant material in nature today, allowing accessibility for experimentation and new perspectives. Craft is a catalyst, a well-researched sustainable production method, that enables design with waste sustaining a culture of co-creating with abundance. Her visual language draws from the geometries in the traditional craft while allowing the materials to dictate the nature and scale of the compositions.
Disharee continues researching new waste materials from the construction and steel industry while learning about old craft techniques and creating works as part of a new material conversation.
Artist Statement
Project Description- “Sound Shapes Form” by Disharee Mathur
Disharee’s line of inquiry explores the future of the bell metal craft through innovation in form and design language. Her field research has documented the craft’s visual and spatial elements with nuanced observation and study of material history, the craft community, and the change in the object over time. While the use of objects over time has gone from every-day routines to rituals in temple worship, the circular form has remained consistent. Through making and collaboration with the artisans, Disharee is exploring new forms that deform the circle organically and their effects on the sonic properties of the final object.
She uses the speculative design methodology to conceptualize her field research and collaboration with the artisans. Mapping the historical context of the craft through material, learning, caste & religious dynamics, geography, and technology, helps take a peak into times ahead with future forecasting societal & environmental developments in these areas. This helps ask critical questions for the future, being explored through conversations & object-making .
What if the bell metal craft and its sound became a part of everyday interactions in the home? What if artisans collaborate to repurpose old kansa objects to create contemporary forms? What does the future of rituals in homes look like and what part of today will remain?
3 design fiction scenarios are created as objects reminiscent of the craft process and its elements while peaking into the future. Materials used include old kansa (bronze) ware, kansa (bronze), brass, and iron, with visuals created using DALL-E for collages mapping the future scenarios.
Object 1
Title- 2kg
Description -
Technology is handmade. This object imagines a future where everyday objects in the home embody technology, look handcrafted, and use mindful interactions. The age-old kansa ghant becomes a table lamp's light switch, infusing the material's meditative sound in a simple household interaction. Multiple elements of the craft process are brought together - Sound shapes form and light reimagines movement on a static object of the past. In this age, karigars and kalakars shape the every day, and technology is the hidden catalyst.
Object 2
Title- 1½ kg
Description -
Folded form - The craft and its material alchemy are experimented with to create a new form. This object explores alternate methods of making within the traditional craft to create new forms, and in turn, new sounds. The original circle from an old kansa plate is deformed organically and folded to create a vessel for light. This object explores a future for the craft that is experimentative, in nature, without tempering with the traditional process, evolving old forms to create new.
Object 3
Title - 800 gm
Description -
Ritual Remains - Imagine a future of embodied technology and handmade luxuries where rituals remain as is but in a new form. This object explores the simple act of incense burning, through a new organically formed object created by cutting, bending, and beating brass sheets- a factory-made material, shaped by heat and the hand. Reminiscing the movement of materials, skills, smoke, and time in the craft, this object explores grounding rituals of the future, related to the home and the craft.
Credits and Acknowledgements
Research & Production Assistance - Sonali Nayak, Debasis Behera, Soham Mohanty
Bell-metal work - Achyuta Sahu
Brass Work - Achyuta Sahu, Vaishnav Moharana
Iron pipe - Bichatra Jena
Electronics and Code - Samudra Gogoi
Research Mapping through Collage Prints
Collage Print 1
“A handcrafted sonic landscape ”
Collage Print 2
“Technology is handmade”
Collage Print 3
“Material Movement for Ritual Remains”
