Chinar Farooqui
PROJECT
Textile designer Chinar Farooqui’s site-specific installation celebrates the traditional hand-embroidery technique chikankari. Known as ‘shadow’ embroidery, chikankari is composed of white thread on white, diaphanous muslin. Here this delicate fabric, usually created within intimate domestic settings, forms a structure inspired by grand royal tents from the Mughal period (1526–1827). Farooqui’s structure comprises four layered thresholds, each made by cutting out mihrabs, or niches, from the muslin. Each layer’s embroidered design tells a different story: one draws from Mughal architectural grandeur, another blooms with flora and fauna, a third reveals the process of chikankari itself. The final layer culminates in the tree of life, an eternal motif of growth, continuity and interconnectedness.
The acquisition of this artist’s work is supported by Lisa Fox
ABOUT
Chinar Farooqui is the founder of Injiri, a Jaipur-based women’s clothing and home furnishing label established in 2009. Named after an African colloquial term for the plaid textiles once exported from South India to West Africa in the eighteenth century, Injiri is rooted in collaboration, working closely with weavers and artisans across India to preserve and celebrate region-specific textile traditions, from weaving and printing to embroidery and material knowledge. Today Injiri’s textiles travel far beyond their place of origin, finding a home in stores and collections across the world, carrying with them stories of craft, community and continuity.
Farooqui holds a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Maharaja Sayajirao University and completed her postgraduate studies in textile design at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. Injiri’s work has been featured in several national and international textile festivals, including FIBRA 2023, TRAMA 2022, and the Serendipity Arts Festival 2025, each presentation extending her ongoing dialogue between tradition and contemporary expression.