There is a tendency to treat inspiration as something dramatic, as though every object begins with a singular flash of brilliance, but Sona Reddy is far more interested in what happens when you linger over the things most people would walk past without a second thought. A rose glimpsed in a garden, the familiar geometry of Madras checks, the hand-coloured illustrations tucked inside an old botany book, or the carved handle of a spoon used every morning become, in Rooted, the beginning of a much slower conversation about memory, material and making, one that unfolds across furniture, textiles and collectible objects without ever feeling tied to a single discipline.
"I completely romanticise the fact that everyday objects can be extremely beautiful and don't have to be plain," Reddy says. "We've always been making everyday objects beautiful, be it a comb, a lamppost or even a spoon." It is a revealing way to think about design, because it shifts the conversation away from luxury or novelty and towards attention, suggesting that beauty has always existed within the routines of everyday life, even if contemporary design has become increasingly preoccupied with separating the functional from the decorative.
That sensibility has followed Reddy through architecture, interiors and collectible design, fields that are often treated as distinct practices despite asking many of the same questions. She speaks about moving between scales with surprising matter-of-factness. "It's the same concept. It's just that the scale changes and you just have to tweak your brain a little bit to work with the scale."
Installed inside the restored nineteenth-century Portuguese-style house that is home to 47-A in Khotachiwadi, the exhibition brings together works that carry traces of both observation and process. The Rosa Collection translates the fleeting presence of a bloom into Jaisalmer stone, ceramic roses and delicate glass inlays, resisting literal representation in favour of something closer to remembrance. Floral Tapestry begins as paintings before each brushstroke is painstakingly reinterpreted through silk-thread embroidery on organza, while botanical illustrations dating back to 1834 are framed in handcrafted Channapatna wood, allowing archival images and living craft traditions to occupy the same object without one overwhelming the other.
Rather than presenting nature as something to be admired from a distance, Rooted asks what survives after the first moment of looking has passed, and whether a piece of furniture or an embroidered textile can hold on to the feeling of that encounter without trying to freeze it in time.
July 24 to August 16, 11 am to 7 pm (except Mondays). 47 A, Khotachiwadi, Mumbai.
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