Yassine Balbzioui: A Testament to Cross-Cultural Collaboration

In the spotlight of Villa Swagatam's ongoing success in Lucknow at Kalhath Institute is resident Yassine Bablzioui, a French Moroccan Multidisciplinary Visionary. His artistic repertoire predominantly encompasses painting and drawing, employing a neo-expressionist approach. His approach showcases the essence of Villa Swagatam's commitment to reciprocity and the exchange of creative excellence.

“Through my work, I intended to play a game of "ping-pong" with the craftsmen: I started a drawing - ink interventions on the fabric - then the artisans embroidered it, and I transformed the drawing again, and so on throughout the creative process. The starting point is a bestiary that is half human half animal, freely inspired by fairy tales, but also by the history of Lucknow city, as well as its embroidery techniques.” says Yassine.

The Kalhath Institute: Bridging Heritage and Artistic Experimentation

Yassine's residency at The Kalhath Institute, founded in 2016 by Maximiliano Modesti and Mohammed Amine Dadda, marks a unique collaboration between the world of art and craft. The institute, based in Lucknow, specializes in hand embroidery, encompassing techniques like Zardosi and Ari, passed down through generations.

The Kalhath Institute's ART Residency program initiated in 2018, provides Yassine with an environment where the artist and artisans collaborate using a variety of natural materials, preserving their unique characteristics. This setting enhances the artist's ability to delve into the cultural richness of Lucknow and contribute to the artistic legacy of the region.

The Kalhath Institute has established a well-practiced tradition of hosting artists, both Indian and international, providing a unique opportunity to explore the distinctive environment of embroiderers. This practice of inviting artists, exemplified by Maximiliano Modesti and his team, contributes to enhancing creative diversity and fostering cultural exchange within the artistic community. From emerging talents to established artists, the Institute continues to play a key role in creating a space for inspiration and collaboration.

For this specific body of work made of 11 pieces (5 large ones measuring over 2.5m and 6 medium ones) Yassine collaborated with 21 embroiderers. This body of work will be shown for the first time in Marrakech, on February 8th 2024, at the opening of the 1-54 Contemporary Art Fair.

Starting from mid-January 2024, Kalhath Institute will welcome another French resident from the Villa Swagatam programme: July Ancel who is also a painter and French visual artist will experience for the first time, the very unique know-how of the Lucknow studio.

About Yassine Balbzioui

Yassine Balbzioui is a Moroccan multidisciplinary visual artist. Born in 1972, he graduated from the Ecole des Beaux-arts in Casablanca and Bordeaux. Essentially a painter and drawer, Yassine Balbzioui has developed, in a neo-expressionist vein, a body of works of great formal and semantic richness, in which the representation of human animality, most often in the guise of a mask, intersects with the notions of derision, idiocy and grotesque. While everyday life remains his main source of inspiration, which is constantly transformed by his artistic gaze, Yassine Balbzioui also incorporates a wide range of fields in his creations, from cinema - Z series and horror films - to theater and dance, tales and legends, etc. Yassine Balbzioui has exhibited his work all over the world: Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid (Moroccan Trilogy), 13th Dakar Biennial, Manifesta 13 in Marseille, Iwalewahaus in Bayreuth, MACAAL Marrakech…

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The KALHATH INSTITUTE: craft excellence, artisan’s empowerment and art dialogue.

After several years of intense preparation, in 2016 The Kalhath Foundation (privately funded) formally launched The Kalhath Institute, a charitable trust and a first-of-its-kind training institute for exceptional embroidery artisans, housed in an elegant 1932 Art Deco building in Lucknow, Northern India. Maximiliano Modesti and Mohammed Amine Dadda founded the Institute, inspired by the beauty and history of the art of zardosi (or needle embroidery that reached its peak of excellence in Lucknow early 19th century) and the talent and passion of local artisans. However, they saw these artisans experienced significant difficulties in accessing training and resources to improve their livelihoods and sustain a craft heritage that stretches back several centuries.

Hence, the Institute is India's first dedicated training center and school dedicated to embroidery teaching, recognition and preservation. With a rigorous curriculum overseen by academics and in partnership with IICD Jaipur (Indian Institute of Craft and Design), the Institute provides mould-breaking design education for exceptional embroidery artisans from Lucknow. They receive an annual paid fellowship to deepen their craft practice and hone their applied design skills. As well as lessons in India and around the world.

As well as clearly communicated classes in all aspects of art and design history, the artisans are given the opportunity to visit museums and private collections to develop their knowledge of cultural heritage. The artisans also receive entrepreneurial and management training to fully benefit from their exceptional craft work. The training culminates in internships and industry placements helping equip the artisans for careers in global luxury craft making for fashion, exports and domestic market growth.

In 2018, The Kalhath Institute launched the Art Residency where artists from within India and around the world are invited to the Institute to work in close collaboration with the embroidery artisans. The inaugural participant of the Art Residency was T.Venkanna, and works produced in collaboration with the artisans were first exhibited at Mumbai-based Gallery Maskara in January 2020. Kalhath-Venkanna embroidered artworks now form part of several prestigious museum and private collections in India and internationally (Burger Collection in Hong Kong, Kiran Nadar Museum Delhi, The Leister Collection in Zurich among others).

The Art Residency is grounded in a core pedagogy that aims to empower artisans to question preconceived and generational perceptions of their craft. In turn, traditional Indian embroidery's reinterpretation in experimental artworks provokes new ways of understanding its role in contemporary art practice and design. By re-articulating artisans' traditional skillset as part of ground-breaking contemporary art, the Institute aims to fundamentally challenge and transform how Indian embroidery is perceived and valued globally. In September 2022, the Institute joined hands with the French Institute in India to include the art residency program as part of the IFI network of art residencies.

In addition to its intensive daily curriculum for artisans, today The Kalhath Institute has evolved́ to include three primary areas of focus:

• The Art Residency with an ongoing annual program of collaboration, exhibitions and catalogues.
• An educational program in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Craft and Design in Jaipur (IICD).
• An entrepreneurial incubation center in partnership with IIM Ahmedabad and IICD Jaipur.

Craft is the axis upon which luxury spins, with unparalleled power to evoke memory, culture, time and place. The name "KALHATH" is composed of "KALA", which means "art" in Hindi, and "HATH", which means “hand". The name expresses how contemporary craft is a conduit of the past; it reflects the present and carries the promise of the future. The Kalhath Institute reflects a deeply held belief that we must recognise rich regional languages of design and justly reward artisans' applied knowledge cultivated over many years of practice. www.kalhath.com

Short Bios:

Maximiliano Modesti has played a pivotal role in the legacy of Indian embroidery for the global luxury industry. After spending several years as the studio manager for Azzedine Alaïa in Paris, Modesti decided to bring his expertise in Italian luxury and French couture together with Indian craft excellence. His Mumbai-based company Les Ateliers 2M produces some of the world's finest embroidery for Europe’s leading luxury brands. The Indian karigars (artisans) work with a repertoire of over seven hundred different kinds of stitches and produce work that can take one's breath away.

Mohammed Amine Dadda holds a bachelor’s degree which he was awarded in 2007 from Euromed Marseille Business School-Campus Bastia. He then completed a Masters in organisational planning and management for social innovation in Paris in 2009. Dadda is passionate about the ways cross-cultural exchange and collective design processes can have a transformational impact on artisan’s lives. The Kalhath Institute is a logical extension of his desire to connect communities whilst creating purposeful design. As is the TIMENDOTES association he founded in Morocco to support the education and development of the antique craft of the “sfifa”.