Chapdi: One amongst Lac

In the ancient corridors of Indian mythology, Lac first appears not as ornament, but as intrigue. The Laksha Grah, or Lac Palace, from the Mahabharata, was a dazzling illusion—constructed with the intent to deceive. Made from highly flammable Lac, it shimmered with a polished red glow, concealing its dangerous purpose. Yet the Pandavas escaped, and in that act of survival began the story of transformation.

This myth has always stayed with me. In it, Lac becomes not just a material of design, but of duality—beauty and danger, delicacy and strength, intention and reinvention. These contradictions define my relationship with Lac today: as a craftsperson, a researcher, and a storyteller. They also shape my ongoing project, Chapdi: One amongst Lac, where I attempt to listen to Lac as both material and metaphor.

A Palace, A Screen, A Sign

I came to Lac not by intention, but by invitation—one extended by history, accident, and intuition.

It was during the research lab project with Konstfack in 2021, a site specific research at Drottningholm Palace’s Kina Slott—the Chinese Pavilion —that this invitation revealed itself. The assignment was to choose a site within the pavilion and develop a material or process-based inquiry. I walked through its ornate rooms, baroque fantasies of chinoiserie, drenched in imported aesthetics, with walls dressed in silk and cabinets overflowing with lacquered objects.

And then I entered the Blue Room.

There, standing quietly against the pale light, was a lacquer screen—rich, dark, layered. I stopped. I had seen such screens before—variations of them—in homes across India, films, and childhood visits to curio shops filled with odd remnants of empire and aspiration. This screen felt familiar, yet distant. Not Chinese to me, not entirely. It triggered something older—an echo from my own growing up.

As I wandered deeper into Kina Slott, lacquered surfaces surrounded me—boxes, cabinets, panels. Everywhere, the artistry of Chinese lacquer was celebrated, collected, preserved in European opulence. I was amazed—at the craftsmanship, at how Chinese artistry had sparked an entire design movement across Europe. And quietly unsettled—by how Indian material cultures, despite their depth and richness, had rarely travelled in this way. Beyond royal jewels or fabrics, Indian crafts remained largely invisible in Western narratives.

The investigation into Lac was presented alongside the lacquer display in the Blue Room at Kina Slott. Pictured are HM King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden and Professor Anders Ljungberg.

Then it struck me—two palaces, worlds apart, both speaking of Lac.
One, the Laksha Grah—a deceptive gift from the Pandavas’ shrewd cousins, intended as a trap to seize a kingdom.
The other, Kina Slott—a palace of fantasy and preservation—a birthday gift from King Adolf Fredrik to Queen Lovisa Ulrika in 1753, embodying European fascination with Chinese art.

This juxtaposition—one mythic, one romantic—felt like a sign. A conversation waiting to happen. That was the moment I chose Lac as my research material—not simply to replicate, but to reclaim, reinterpret, and reimagine.

A Material of Memory and Transformation

The word Lac comes from Laksha, referring to the hundreds of thousands of Kerria lacca insects that produce this natural resin. It is farmed on trees like kusum, ber, and palash—trees sacred to both ecology and culture in many parts of India. Harvested and processed by hand, Lac is neither fast nor precise. It is alive. It responds to heat, to touch, to time. And this makes it a profoundly human material.

Chapdi

Working with chapdi—thin sheets of Lac pressed by hand while warm—I discovered an intimacy unlike any I had known. Lac is coaxed, not made. The artisan must sense the exact moment it becomes pliable, listen to its subtle language. This is a craft that resists mechanization, grounded in slowness and intuition. It cannot be rushed or scaled easily. It lives in slowness, in skill passed through generations of indigenous knowledge, often by communities invisible to modern markets.

Lac is versatile and sustainable, a natural polymer with surprising breadth. Historically, it has been used:

While Lac does not literally absorb smoke, skin, or sunlight scientifically, it registers its environment. Reactive to temperature and humidity, it ages with context—cracking in dryness, softening in moisture. It holds the fingerprints of process and touch, becoming a document of intimacy.

The Dance of Heat and Hand

The making of Lac is a choreography of fire and touch. The artisan sits by a quiet furnace, its embers glowing like a heartbeat. In one hand, a slender wooden dowel; in the other, a strip of chapdi—purified Lac. With practiced patience, the chapdi is pressed onto the dowel and brought close to the heat. The Lac begins to soften, and like dough, it is kneaded gently on a metal surface placed beside the furnace—warm enough to keep the Lac pliable, yet firm enough to shape it. This surface becomes the artisan’s silent collaborator, holding the memory of each motion.

The Lac is reheated again and again—pressed, pulled, and turned with rhythmic precision. At just the right moment, pigments are added, mixed in while the material is still supple, giving rise to vibrant reds, deep ambers, or lush greens. With the addition of indigenous tools—chisels, wooden paddles, iron blades—the artisan begins to shape, incise, and pattern. Each tool has its own gesture, its own sound. What emerges is not merely an object, but a mark of time and temperature, of instinct and inheritance.

work in progress

For me, Chapdi is not about product; it is about presence. The process of working with Lac becomes a study in waiting, in surrendering to a rhythm that is not mine but the material’s. It is a collaboration with time, touch, and temperature

Between the Palace and the Pulse

Lac has always balanced the grand and the grounded. Royal courts prized Lac in jewellery and ornamentation. In Rajasthan and Bihar, red Lac bangles symbolize marriage, tradition, fertility. In Andhra Pradesh, temple priests coat sacred objects with Lac. In Bidar, Bidri metalware is adorned with Lac to reveal silver inlay.

These narratives span centuries yet converge with surprising modernities. Early phonograph records made of shellac—a processed Lac form—bridged from tribal forests to factories. From sanctity to sound.

This paradox fascinates me: ancient yet modern, fragile yet resonant, organic yet archival. Even in brittleness, Lac preserves.

Colorful Lac bangles

A Material of Memory and Transformation

The word Lac comes from Laksha, meaning hundreds of thousands—the countless Kerria lacca insects that produce this natural resin. They farm themselves on host trees such as kusum, ber, and palash—trees sacred to both ecology and folklore. The cultivation and harvesting of Lac require delicate timing and deep understanding of this living cycle. It is not extraction—it is relationship.

Working with chapdi—thin sheets of Lac pressed by hand while warm—I discovered an intimacy unlike any I had known. Lac is coaxed, not made. The artisan must sense the exact moment it becomes pliable, listen to its subtle language. This is a craft that resists mechanization, grounded in slowness and intuition.

A Craft of Care

At the heart of Lac is the artisan. In India’s tribal belts, communities such as the Munda, Santhal, Oraon, and Jangid have cultivated Lac for generations. Their knowledge is oral, gestural, ancestral. Their work is care—of trees, insects, timing, hands.

And then there are the Manihars, the traditional bangle makers—custodians of lacquer’s delicate transformation into adornment. Often working in narrow lanes with small fires and hand-rolled tools, the Manihars shape molten Lac into bangles that carry memory, protection, and identity. The bangle is not just a product—it is ritual, gesture, and poetry, passed from wrist to wrist, from mother to daughter. The Manihar’s workshop is a quiet theatre of skill and heat, where colour meets culture and time slows down.

Manihar at work

Design histories often erase these hands, but Lac’s true beauty is in patience and relationship. This is craft ethics: not just making, but being in relation—to land, time, and each other. It is in the unseen touch of the Manihar smoothing a joint, the tribal cultivator waiting for the right season, the shared rhythm between craftsperson and material.

Gulal Gota 

And nestled even deeper in the folds of Rajasthan’s craft traditions is the exquisite, nearly forgotten object: the Gulal Gota. Small, hollow Lac balls filled with coloured powder—these were once playfully thrown during Holi festivities by royal women, designed to burst in a cloud of fragrance and celebration. Made only by a handful of families in Jaipur today, Gulal Gotas are miniature marvels. Thinner than egg shells, their making demands such finesse that the technique is held close, passed down like a secret. Each sphere is a vessel of joy and precision—a whisper of spring, a burst of memory.

The Planters

As my research evolved, my first Lac objects emerged—planters. Initially intuitive, the connection revealed itself: Lac’s brittleness in dry climates can be tempered by proximity to water and moisture. Soil and plant humidity create a microclimate supporting Lac’s flexibility, preventing cracks.

Lac Planter

The planter doesn’t just hold life; it is sustained by it.

This harmony became metaphor—a resilience through relation. Craft, like a planter, thrives not separate from life but alongside it.

One amongst Lac

Chapdi: One amongst Lac plays on “one in a million” and the Sanskrit Laksha, nodding to the countless insects and to the fragile, unique sheets of chapdi.

Each sheet is shaped by hand, heat, moment—one in a hundred thousand. A fragile document of making.

This project is an ode to fragility—what can be lost, but also what can be remembered. It traces a material journey—from burning palaces to bridal wrists to archival records—and honors those shaping it at every step.

Perhaps it began not with Lac itself, but with two palaces—one mythic, one European—whispering stories of a single ancient substance. That whisper became a calling, and the calling, a practice.