Chapdi: One amongst Lac
Lac as Origin Story
In the long narratives of Indian mythology, Lac appears early, carrying tension rather than ornament. The Laksha Grah, the palace described in the Mahabharata, was built as a spectacle. Its red glow shimmered with promise. Its surfaces concealed danger. Constructed from highly flammable Lac, it was designed as a trap disguised as generosity. The Pandavas survived. Their escape marked a turning point. From that moment, Lac entered history as a material tied to survival, intelligence, and transformation.
This story has stayed with me. Within it, Lac holds complexity. It carries beauty alongside risk. It carries delicacy alongside endurance. It carries intention shaped through circumstance. These qualities continue to define my relationship with Lac today, shaping how I approach it as a maker, a researcher, and a storyteller. They form the foundation of my ongoing project, Chapdi: One amongst Lac, where Lac is approached as material, memory, and metaphor.
A Palace, A Screen, A SignMy encounter with Lac arrived gradually. It came through history, accident, and intuition rather than deliberate search.
In 2021, during a research lab project at Konstfack, I undertook a site specific investigation at Drottningholm Palace, within Kina Slott, the Chinese Pavilion. The task was to select a site and develop a material or process based inquiry. I moved through its rooms filled with European interpretations of Chinese aesthetics. Silk lined the walls. Cabinets displayed lacquered objects collected, admired, and preserved.
Then I entered the Blue Room. A lacquer screen stood quietly within the space. Dark. Layered. Reflective. I stopped. The form felt familiar. I had encountered similar screens before, scattered across Indian homes, films, and childhood visits to curio shops filled with remnants of empire and aspiration. The screen carried recognition without clarity. It belonged to memory more than geography.
As I continued through Kina Slott, lacquered surfaces appeared repeatedly. Boxes. Panels. Cabinets. Chinese craftsmanship was celebrated with reverence. I felt admiration for the skill and for how this material culture had travelled, been collected, and absorbed into European design history. Alongside that admiration came unease. Indian material cultures, despite their depth and continuity, had rarely moved through these same channels of visibility. Their presence remained limited to select objects and narrow narratives.
My investigation into Lac was presented alongside the lacquer display in the Blue Room at Kina Slott. Present at the exhibition were HM King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden and Professor Anders Ljungberg.
At that moment, two palaces came into focus. One existed in myth. One stood within European history. Both carried stories shaped by Lac. The Laksha Grah, created as deception within an epic struggle for power. Kina Slott, created as fantasy and preservation, gifted by King Adolf Fredrik to Queen Lovisa Ulrika in 1753, reflecting European fascination with Chinese art.
These parallel presences felt significant. They formed a quiet conversation across time and geography. That was when Lac became my research material. The intention was not replication. It was engagement. It was reinterpretation. It was reclamation.
One amongst Lac
Chapdi: One amongst Lac draws from the phrase one in a million and from laksha, the Sanskrit word referencing countless insects. It gestures toward multiplicity and toward the fragile singularity of each sheet of chapdi. Each sheet is formed through hand, heat, and timing. Each carries variation. Each becomes a document of making shaped by moment and touch.
This project holds fragility alongside endurance. It moves with Lac through fire, ornament, ritual, and record. It acknowledges the material and the hands that have shaped it over generations. The journey began with two palaces and a substance layered with centuries of memory. What emerged continues as a practice formed through attention and listening.
Image Ref: Notes on Zoology
Text and images © The Buraansh Local, 2026. All rights reserved.