ALIVE AND EXTANT

Rekindling the spirit of ancient marketplaces, XTANT, envisioned by Kavita Parmar and Marcella Echavarría weaves craft, memory and community into a quiet but radical act of cultural exchange in Mallorca with 83 artists from 30 countries

- TEXT BY SHRITI DAS PHOTOGRAPHY BY YUKI SUGIURA PRODUCED BY MRUDUL PATHAK KUNDU

TEXTILES, TOOLS AND TRADITIONS

Long before marketing budgets and costsheets, we had magical marketplaces in faraway lands. Where merchants arrived with pouches of spice, bolts of embroidered cloth, and curious objects of mystique.

The kind of place you read about in fairytales — but they don't exist in our world of screens and spreadsheets, right? Wrong. I would soon come to learn that this beautiful premise is extant at XTANT. It is the annual gathering that reimagines the marketplace as a space for cultural exchange, craft preservation and community through textiles.

Founded in 2020 by Indian-born designer Kavita Parmar and cultural strategist Marcella Echavarría, it brings together master artisans, makers, thinkers and lovers of the arts from around the world in historic, storied locations.

And it has none of the visual fatigue of a conventional design show nor its business model. And it's profitable. Am I in Utopia?

A ROYAL ARCHIVE

Earlier this year, XTANT unfolded with over 80 exhibitors from 20 countries, in the heart of Palma's old town, inside Can Vivot — a private 15th-century noble residence. Housing generations of Mallorcan nobility, Can Vivot carries memories of empire, trade, power and protection.