We are delighted to announce the opening of ‘Negotiating the Aspired Home: Aapse Milkar Khushi Hui’ curated by Sweety Taur & Deepika Srivastava.

Opening: 31 May 2025, Saturday
Time: 6.30 PM onwards
Address & Walkthrough with the Curators

Negotiating the Aspired Home: Aapse Milkar Khushi Hui explores how Indian middle-class homes transformed after economic liberalisation. With the rise of the ‘new middle class’ and international consumerism post-1991, homes became contested spaces where aspiration met affordability, and global aesthetics clashed with local ingenuity. The shift from socialist frugality to media-driven consumerism altered incomes, consumption patterns, family structures, and domestic spaces.

Television, films, and print media of the time reflected these changing aspirations, showing what it meant to ‘arrive’ in a liberalised economy. The showcase of Jaipur homes highlights how generational family homes evolved into creative, original spaces—shaped by both constraints and ingenuity. It also reveals the vital collaborations between homeowners and neighbourhood artisans, positioning the middle class as active patrons of contemporary craft. These co-creative practices have the potential to nurture local entrepreneurship and foster self-sustaining marketplaces.

By revisiting these decades, the exhibition offers a nuanced lens on how aspiration, resourcefulness, and identity continue to shape India’s middle-class home.

Deepika Srivastava is a design historian whose creative practice lies at the intersection of curation and academia. Her work spans government projects (with NID Ahmedabad), consumer product histories (with Godrej Archives), and historical artefacts (with House of Kathiwada). She has taught as visiting faculty at NID Ahmedabad, BITS Design School, and currently serves as a Trustee of the Design History Society. Deepika is an alumna of the MA History of Design programme at the Royal College of Art, London.

Sweety Taur is a designer, curator, and academic working across ethical design, social histories, crafts, and earth building. She is Co-Founder of the Dehradun-based Prolog Collective, creating immersive learning experiences, narratives, and objects. She specializes in home and hospitality furniture and lifestyle products, and is a former faculty member at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad’s Furniture and Interior Design department.