Princess Pea, the alter ego of the artist Natasha Preenja, has been awarded the inaugural Swali Craft Prize, presented by the Chanakya School of Craft in partnership with India Art Fair. As part of the prize, worth 1.1 million rupees (around $12,000), she will exhibit at the fair a 6ft-tall embroidered wooden sculpture depicting a squatting woman, a pose symbolising “maternal strength”, the artist says. It was made during a funded residency at the Chanakya School in Mumbai, in collaboration with local embroiderers.
Princess Pea’s work spans drawing, sculpture, photography and performance, incorporating craft primarily through wood turning made with local women artisans. The prizejury praised her approach for resonating with the ethos of the Chanakya School, and its focus on “women’s education, intergenerational learning and the transmission of inherited knowledge”.
The Chanakya School of Craft, led by Karishma Swali, is a non-profit founded by the embroidery house Chanakya International, which works with major fashion brands, including Dior and Loewe. Chanakya has staged several exhibitions in India and abroad to promote the role of artisans in India, including Cosmic Garden, a collateral event at the 2024 Venice Biennale, which brought together the work of dozens of weavers and embroiderers alongside the Indian artists Manu and Madhvi Parekh.
