Indigo is rarely just one shade. Historically, it has always been tied to labour—to hands dipping cloth again and again, to waiting, to the patience of watching colour appear rather than applying it. It sits somewhere between what we can see clearly and what we feel but cannot always name.
This is where Letters to Indigo, presented by Room Therapy Collective, begins. Not with colour as surface, but with indigo as sentiment. As something emotional, cultural, and deeply personal. The exhibition brings together designers and artisans who respond to indigo not as a theme to interpret, but as a state to enter. Each contribution feels like a letter—shaped by material, process, and lived experience.
For Sona Reddy, architect and founder of Room Therapy Collective, indigo felt instinctive rather than conceptual. “Indigo exists in a space of quiet intensity,” she says. “It sits between blue and violet—between clarity and mystery—and carries centuries of history, craft, and emotion. More than a colour, indigo is a feeling. It’s introspective and deeply intuitive.”
From the beginning, her intention was not to create a singular narrative.
“Letters to Indigo came from a desire to explore indigo as a shared language,” Sona explains. “Each designer was invited to respond through their own materials and processes. The exhibition was about allowing many voices to exist together.”
That sense of restraint carries into her own work. Sona’s personal connection to horses—shaped by her husband’s and son’s involvement in polo— is showcased in the pieces she presents. “Being around horses every day teaches you about discipline, movement, and composure,” she reflects. “There’s strength there, but it’s controlled. That way of thinking naturally enters my work.”
For Letters to Indigo, she chose marble, inlaid with indigo glass, to create a centre table, console, and side table. “Marble has weight and permanence,” she says. “The indigo glass interrupts that solidity. It introduces light, reflection, and softness without taking away from the strength of the form.”
The exhibition also moves beyond furniture through a collaboration with SAPA from Mysore, where food becomes another expression of craft.
“Food and design rely on similar ideas—time, repetition, skill, and respect for material,” Sona notes. “Bringing them together makes craft feel lived-in. It becomes part of everyday ritual, not something distant.”
A deeper, more reflective mood emerges through Neela Ratri, the limited-edition collection by Studio The Vernacular Modern, created especially for Letters to Indigo. Extending their earlier wood inlay collection Co-existence, Neela Ratri shifts into stone inlay and cyanotype blue, moving from warmth into dusk.
“Indigo exists at the threshold between light and darkness,” founder Deeptashree Saha reflects. “It is the colour of dusk—when the world slows down enough for us to notice what is fragile, and what might be slipping away.”
Stone, in their practice, is not simply a surface. It carries time and generational knowledge. Cyanotype, meanwhile, allows light itself to create blue. “Cyanotype is not about applying colour,” designer Abhirup Dutta explains. “It’s about exposure. Light leaves a trace. What remains is a memory of time.”
Neela Ratri also carries a sense of warning. “If Co-existence spoke about balance, Neela Ratri is more urgent,” they say. “Dusk is not just a moment—it’s a signal. If we don’t act now, we risk losing vernacular knowledge, local materials, and the ecosystems that sustain us. Coexistence is not inherited. It has to be chosen.”
Nawazish Kirmani and Soujanya Manda, together present their work Neel, which means Indigo as well as water. “Indigo as a colour instills a deep sense of calm which I relate with water, the indigo glazed tiles create that abstract image of light bouncing off the surface of water,” says Nawazish.
The collection has a very understated geometric and structured form with circular voids creating a play with the solids, the handmade indigo tiles clearly are the focus in every piece, around five thousand plus tiles were handmade meticulously by Soujanya for this collection, her passion for ceramics is clearly evident in every shade of indigo of the thousands of tiles she has handmade across three months.
Taken together, Letters to Indigo feels like a statement, a reminder that indigo—and coexistence itself—is built through care, repetition, and conscious choice, again and again, before the light fades.
On till January 31, 10.30 am to 7 pm.
At Room Therapy Collective, Jubilee Hills.
Email: anshula.u@newindianexpress.com
X: @indulgexpress
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