The social fabric of craft

Designer Saif Faisal is working with local craftsmen in south-west India to contemporise a complex and precious metal craft

WORDS BY LEMMA SHEHADI

For designer Saif Faisal, sustainable design is not just about saving the environment. “We have to talk about cultural and social sustainability,” he tells identity. “We are losing our culture and our social fabric. Our phones and our watches look the same. Everything becomes homogeneous.”

To address this gap, he says designers must revive local craft traditions. As such, the Bangalore-based designer has been working to contemporise a historic metal craft from south-west India known as Bidriware. “Our crafts and traditions are a way of maintaining that link to the past,” he affirms.

His latest collection, in collaboration with Swedish design platform KATHA, was unveiled during Paris Design Week in September. “It feels like a sculpture when you hold it. You have this matt black surface with a super-glossy inlay. It is between a functional object and a decorative object,” says KATHA’s co-founder Elena Freddi.

Bidriware was developed in the town of Bidar in the 14th century, when the south of India was ruled by the Persian Bahmani Sultans. The craft’s decorative household objects are made of blackened brass with a detailed and ornate silver inlay.

A special soil, found only in Bidar’s Bidri Fort, is used to oxidise and blacken the brass. “The technique was discovered by the Persian alchemist Abdullah Bin Khaizar,” Faisal explains. “He found a unique mud in the fort that has been attributed to the armoury’s gunpowder or, possibly, pigeon droppings.”

To date, only a handful of master craftsmen are able to source the right mud that is needed to make Bidriware. “They can’t just pick any mud. They have to taste it to see the properties of the mud, that it’s metallic and salty.”

Only a few master craftsmen remain today, who learnt the trade from their forefathers. “To the best of my knowledge there are only two remaining in Bidar,” says Faisal, who grew up in the town and knows both families. “Only one of them is interested in collaborating with contemporary artists and designers.”

Part of the issue is India’s social hierarchies and caste system, which make artisanal professions unattractive to younger generations. The other is the craftsmen’s rigid approach to the tradition. “There’s been no technical update, and most of the craftsmen are happy doing traditional pieces. Their work is like imitated pieces from history,” says Faisal.

The KATHA collection is composed of two vases, which bring together contemporary minimalism with the delicate manufacturing of Bidriware. The Alhambra vase echoes the domed buildings of Islamic architecture, including the tomb of Ali Barid Shah in Bidar, which Faisal points out “is a lot more refined than the Taj Mahal.” A simple inlay of cross-cutting lines recalls Islamic geometric motifs. “The vase looks very simple but there were a set of geometric principles that you could not deviate from,” the designer explains. To achieve this effect, Faisal collaborated with Bidar’s master craftsman M A Rauf. “He’s like a Renaissance man or polymath. He is really good at geometry, and works very well with his compasses.” It can take one week to complete a vase in Bidriware.

“There are ten stages of production; if one of them gets spoiled, the whole product is spoiled.” As such, the designer introduced modern technology such as 3D-printed moulds. “The finished industrial moulds give a consistency to the craft and helps minimise the stages,” Faisal adds. For KATHA’s co-founder Mina Panic, the project is helping to revive a craft which she believes risks being relegated to museums. “Our aim at KATHA is to transSaif Faisal form these interesting techniques and materials into a modern-day tale, to take the craft out of the glass vitrines [of museums] and use it,” she says. Faisal hopes that a modern approach to Bidriware can create accessible and unique design pieces. “We want product pieces that could become heirlooms, that are carried from one generation to another,” he says. “It’s a gesture that gives the sense of a slow and sustained lifestyle.” id