Handicrafts have taken a new place in the capital, and it is called Kunj (a grove in Sanskrit) after its place in Vasant Kunj. Its name, combining English and Sanskrit, deliberately feels the revaluation of the traditional world of crafts, which wants to represent a post-trin, post-coved, in the post-internet world. legend of space Is everything at this time: Who can occupy space and how much, how to protect the internal space and how to deal with its claims. Kunj, then all the space is about – it is a frain, one that effectively connects art, artist, audience, community, crafts and commerce without any stakeholder.
Kunj is a huge sandstone built by the Union Ministry of Textiles, which opened its doors to the world in late August. As I walk on a Saturday, I entered the sun in a rain-filled capital, I see Black stageA nook in which Ashutosh Verma is performing his paper-cutting craft, putting his stainless-steel scissors to work on a pearl-white paper. In a minute, a small bird exits it. He tells me that, in English, that he is a sixth generation artist in Sanji paper-cutting craft. Some families pass the skills and calm, instead of trauma it seems.
Kunj is the latest offering in a long history of state protection of traditional crafts. Before Emarsiv was also one thing, there was a Central Cottage Emporium in New Delhi. Opened immediately after independence, no one can touch and feel a bone-inle elephant from Jodhpur or miracle in a miniature painting. The state is supported by handloom and handicrafts, emphoria and in its capacity Carigar Melus And nurtured it with subsidies and skills enhancing the weavers’ service centers. And, in 2025, when support for handicrafts is unaware of a certain performance-oriented to social media, the government unveiled the kunj, which tolerates the tagline: ‘Handmade in India, designed for the world’.
A huge Jodhpur ‘Morjari’ footwear performance. , Photo Credit: Courtesy Kunj
Modest
Here, IndiGo-Sikkased Block-Printing Brand By conversation with Udaipur Ikat Sari designer from Odisha. The rug-baked brand from Kashmir comes from Meghalaya from the prized Eri silk dress boutique. It has space for conversations in generations, craft types and continents in the hall, table and glass division. Here, designer brands rub shoulders with non-profit. Anuradha Kumra, architect and Chief Advisor (Retail Operations), talk about how brands like Iro, Shrujan, Khimir, Kiniho and Memeraki, among others, India’s fashion design counsel, National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), given by Indian Institute, Institute of Crafts The recommendations were selected for the opening location. “These are brands that do not have brick-and-mortar spaces that work with traditional crafts and push the design boundaries,” she tells me on a phone call. These retailers have to continue here for three months to start.
An artisan at work in Kunj. , Photo Credit: Courtesy Kunj
As I make my way on the first floor, the weaver hugged his loom, responded to the query with teenagers, while focusing on his taunt and weight, a clutch of children takes a clutch of children to a gond-painted table in the canteen space and a huge original installation to a gond-pant in a giant original installation Am. His eyes are on the tiles of the bone colored floor, in the middle of which Arabic scroll comes into life in mosaic. The design elements in the kunj are elaborate and unnatural.
A wall called Paramapara (tradition) is dedicated to the Padma Shri Award winners in handloom and handicraft areas on the first floor. Fraled in colored phulkari Borders, Black and White Photographs celebrate such artisans such as Namgyal Shingos (2022, Wood Carving), Godavari Dutta (2019, Madhubani Painting), Rashid Ahmed Quadri (2023, Bidri), D. Trichot Rao (2020, TholuBommalata), among others.
Blue pottery in Kaarigar Sangam | Photo Credit: Courtesy Kunj
then there is Carigar SangamA hall where Objets d’Art Descriptive cards are displayed with artisans and their phone numbers, making it easier for customers/brands to reach artisans. This awards prize by the winning craftsmen who can be purchased at prices Artisans Have decided for your products. All income go straight into ArtisanWith no cuts in the middle. I did a video-coal to Kondra Gangadhar, whose WhatsApp display picture proudly receives him the 2018 Crafts Guru Award from the then vice-president of India for a wood-making of wood.
Boteh (Paisle -shaped) wooden blocks were carved for Kalamkari, crafts guru Kondra Ganagadhar at Karigar Sangam. , Photo Credit: Courtesy Kunj
When I tell him about the carved boat wood-blocks carved for Kalamkari displayed in Kunj, and he smiles in shame first, and then proudly. In a 10 -minute chatting in broken Telugu and Hindi, I bought three small bottles from them. The government does not do gatekeep. Amrit Raj, the Development Commissioner of Handicrafts, whose office leads the construction and management of Kunj, says, says this Objets d’Art “There is a collection of award entries received by the department that we wanted to show to sell, so that they beautify the houses of the craft”.
Promise to return
Art infusion Or the praise of art seems to be a guide darshan. , Photo Credit: Courtesy Kunj
In 2022, as the then director of the NIFT (National Institute of Fashion Technology) in Bengaluru, I once emailed a request for a handcraft retail space across the road to allow the craftsmen coming to the campus inside their store. When no response was received, a faculty member crossed, only denied humility and explained the risks of breakdown and how it would disrupt ‘serious customers’.
Kunj, on the contrary, does not pursue sales and benefits aggressively. Art infusion Or the praise of art seems to be a guide. It asks you to appreciate and appreciate the magic in worldly. For example, called the wall on lamps from across the country Enlightened indiaThis will close you into your track as soon as you enter, the huge bankura horses in the terracotta in the past.
Perhaps, the biggest reward of spaces like these – no compulsion for any entry fee and purchase – packs of students who come in the draw. They are leading in the world of Indian crafts, are at hand by artisans, a sense of pride and a period of timely handcrafting traditions. As my adolescent daughter raises the delicate paper-story of Sunji craft in her hand, she says she would use it as a bookmark, “This is like a lace on paper”, she says. On her mobile-phone screen, she zooms in a picture of the papir-mounted vase from Kashmir and says, “I will come again with my friends.” And this is the promise and ability of Kunj.
The author is a career civil servant and a producer on Instagram, where she advocates Indian crafts.
Published – September 11, 2025 05:27 pm IST