At this year’s India Design ID 2026, artist-designer Alaiia Gujral unveils KŌRA, a process-led installation that moves fluidly between art, furniture, textile, and light. On view from 19–22 February in the Collectible Section (Booth C03), the presentation situates Gujral’s evolving practice at the intersection of material experimentation and spatial experience.
Unlike conventional design presentations built around a fixed concept, KŌRA unfolds through an intuitive dialogue with material. “I don’t begin with an idea and then look for materials to support it,” Gujral shares. “I begin with the materials.” This hands-on methodology transforms making into inquiry — where form surfaces through touch, time, and repetition rather than predetermined intent.
The installation emerges as a unified environment composed of four interlinked elements. Sculptural furniture crafted from stone, metal, and glass probes the relationships between weight, balance, and support. Vertical light columns create a rhythm of glow that defines atmosphere rather than illumination. Underfoot, a hand-dyed textile floor extends onto the walls, imbuing the space with pigment, gesture, and a trace of time.
“These objects are meant to be used,” Gujral notes. “But use doesn’t erase them — they’re meant to hold their presence, even within daily life.” This insistence on endurance and intimacy reframes the object not as static design, but as a living participant in spatial and sensory experience.
KŌRA resists hierarchy: furniture does not dominate as product, nor does installation posture as spectacle. Instead, Gujral stages a quiet system where matter itself becomes structure, atmosphere, and experience. Visitors encounter the space through proximity and movement — an unfolding choreography in which meaning accrues gradually, through use and perception.
As her latest body of work, KŌRA extends Gujral’s material-led ethos across scales of making. It proposes “collectible design” not as a luxury object, but as a site of negotiation between material, body, and space — a realm where process remains visible and creation carries both freedom and responsibility.
About the Artist
New Delhi– and Chicago-based Alaiia Gujral is a designer, curator, and creative director whose practice spans collectible design, sculptural objects, and immersive environments. Founder of Alaiia Gujral Studio and Future Galerie, she has previously exhibited at India Art Fair, Art Basel Miami, and the London Design Biennale, with collaborations ranging from Red Bull to Rolling Stone. KŌRA continues her ongoing exploration of how material presence can shape both aesthetic and emotional experience.
Athmaja Biju is the Editor at Abir Pothi. She is a Translator and Writer working on Visual Culture.
