Masaba Gupta, Ashiesh Shah and the Vayeda brothers reimagine the art of offering at Mumbai’s Nilaya Anthology

What makes an offering meaningful: the act of giving, the intention behind it, or the belief it carries? At Nilaya Anthology in Mumbai, The Art of Offering explores this question through four installations that reinterpret rituals, materials, and gestures rooted in Indian life. Featuring designer Masaba Gupta, architect Ashiesh Shah, and Warli artists Mayur and Tushar Vayeda, who work to preserve their community’s indigenous art and cultural knowledge, and artist-designer Prerna Garg, the exhibition considers how an offering can be more than an object presented in devotion.

For Pavitra Rajaram, creative director of Nilaya Anthology, the distinction between design and devotion is not as clear-cut as it might appear. “We wanted to look at an offering not just as something that is given, but as something made with intention,” she says. The idea moves the exhibition beyond festive decoration, asking visitors to consider the cultural and personal significance of the objects and rituals that surround them.

From prayer to presence

Masaba Gupta’s installation takes a more intimate route. Dominated by red, it brings together a Nandi, a bindu made from chillies and palm prints inspired by the ritual use of alta, the red dye traditionally applied to hands and feet during ceremonies. These familiar elements of domestic worship become symbols of self-preservation. The installation grew out of her personal reflections on how difficult periods can change us, and why returning to ourselves can be an act of courage. “The greatest offering is the conscious choice to remain joyful, courageous and full of faith,” she says.

At a time when being constantly available, productive and visible can feel like a requirement, Masaba suggests that an offering need not always be directed outwards. Sometimes, it can be the time and attention we give ourselves.

For architect Ashiesh Shah, the starting point is abhishekam, the ritual bathing of a deity with water or other sacred substances. He translates this familiar act of devotion into an exploration of the Brahmand, or universe, using light and reflection to make something vast feel physically immediate. The installation connects the intimate act of pouring water over a deity with the larger question of where we stand in relation to the cosmos. Rather than treating ritual as something confined to a temple, Shah invites visitors to experience it as a way of understanding their place in the world.

The Vayeda Brothers, Mayur and Tushar, approach the theme through a different kind of devotion: the relationship between indigenous art, community memory and Nature. Hailing from Ganjad, a village in Maharashtra’s Palghar district, the brothers belong to the Warli community and use their practice to document its cultural knowledge and traditions.

Warli painting is widely recognised for its distinctive visual language, particularly its geometric forms and white figures against earthy backgrounds. But reducing it to an attractive wall motif risks overlooking its ritual and social significance. For the brothers, the exhibition is an opportunity to bring that history into a conversation about contemporary design.

Their installation draws on the Warli community’s relationship with natural elements, including the earth, seeds and the cycles of human life. The idea is to recognise nature not as something separate from human existence, but as an essential part of it.

“We always try to bring the idea of indigenous knowledge systems to people, rather than having a decorative piece of art,” says Mayur. He explains that traditional Warli painting uses natural materials, including pigments prepared from earth and paint made using freshly harvested rice. The process preserves community knowledge as much as it produces an artwork.

That distinction matters. As indigenous art finds new audiences through galleries, luxury interiors and commercial collaborations, questions about context and cultural understanding become increasingly important. Visibility can help sustain artistic practices, but it should not come at the cost of stripping them of the meanings that made them significant in the first place.

Artist and designer Prerna Garg completes the quartet of creatives interpreting the theme, bringing another perspective on material, form and contemporary craft. Together, the four installations move between personal experience and inherited traditions, suggesting that there is no single way to understand an offering.

The exhibition does not offer easy answers. Instead, it asks us to look more closely at the objects we preserve, the materials we use and the gestures we repeat. These choices can reveal what we value, what we inherit and what we want to pass on. Ultimately, an offering is not simply about what we give. It is also about the intention, knowledge and belief that give the act its meaning.

The Art of Offering is on view at Nilaya Anthology, Lower Parel, through October.