NIMISH SHAH TURNS HIS FAMILY HOME AND TEXTILE FACTORY INTO AN ART RESIDENCY, UNPACKING CRAFT TRADITIONS AND MASS PRODUCTION.

Even the most mass-produced objects are touched by hands," says designer Nimish Shah.

-  SOHINI DEY

The line between artisanal skills and mechanised production is often sharply drawn. Goods made in a factory become representative of a mindset that seeks to replicate and replace artisanal objects that have been made by hand. If one is a product, the other is craft.

Conventional wisdom often pits these opposing forces against each other. Shah situates them at an intersection instead—on the factory floor of his family's silkscreen printing unit in Sabarkantha, Gujarat. In his imagination, craft can be part of mass manufacturing, not just as source material and inspiration but in the human intelligence that drives the process.

Earlier this year, the designer put this theory to test. Artists Kaamna Patel, Julien Segard and Garima Gupta, along with curator Veerangana Solanki, spent 10 days in Sabarkantha exploring silkscreen printing and its possibilities for their individual practice. Shah's factory became a site for the first edition of a residency that he conceived as a fresh creative expression of his fashion label, Shift.

"I have been quietly working on a new voice for Shift for some time now," he says. Launched in 2011, Shift found critical acclaim and a star-studded fan following for its meticulously constructed and elevated contemporary wear. Over a decade later, the idea of a shift—of experimenting and pushing boundaries—began to take shape. “The idea was to bring people together, interact and understand each other, and reflect upon a brief,” he says.