Lakshmi Madhavan on Kasavu, diamonds, and her collaboration with De Beers

First presented in Frieze London, Voyage Through the Diamond Realm, an immersive experience presented by De Beers, comes to India as a meditation on time, material, and the extraordinary artistry of nature itself. For centuries, diamonds have held a singular place in human history—from ancient myths to modern rituals, they have endured as symbols of celebration, strength, truth, and love. Revered not only for their beauty but for what that beauty means, they are among nature's oldest storytellers, carrying a living legacy across generations and geographies. 

For its India presentation, De Beers brings that idea into conversation with Lakshmi Madhavan, whose practice is rooted in Kasavu, Kerala’s traditional gold handwoven textile, made in collaboration with the weaving community of Balaramapuram. 

Bazaar India caught up with Madhavan ahead of her presentation at India Art Fair 2026. Here are the excerpts: 

Harper’s Bazaar: Could you walk us through your creative process for this installation—how did you translate the geological and cosmic journey of natural diamonds into a dialogue with Kasavu textiles?

Lakshmi Madhavan: At the surface level, yes, most people would say they have nothing in common. But once I started speaking with the De Beers team and really understanding the journey of the diamond, I felt like there's such a natural synergy between the two materials. Both are shaped by nature, both are shaped by time, both are shaped by human intervention. And for me as an artist, the body has always been a strong focus in my work. Even the Kasavu cloth I work with—it really gets its meaning in conjunction with the body. Their meaning is only activated because of an intimacy with the human body. That felt like a very real entry point.

Both materials are on this constant journey from their rawest form to what they finally become, which is a huge process of transformation and continuity. At its base, it's really about matter—and how matter acquires meaning and metaphor through touch, care, time, ritual, identity.

HB: The Kasavu panels and the diamond portal—they don't actually touch each other in the installation. Can you talk about that choice?

LM: Yes, and that was very intentional. The final installation is quite sublime and ephemeral. The Kasavu panels are there, the diamond portal is there, and they're in conversation through light and shadow play. It's not obvious, it's not forced. They both stand singularly, and yet in their own way, they're casting onto each other, talking to each other. There's only this specific moment when you see the shadows interacting and coming together — and then they go back to being their own. I really enjoyed working within that restraint.

HB: You've described Kasavu as the wearable counterpart to the natural diamond. In what ways do both carry the weight of time, pressure, and human hands?

LM: The story of both materials only exists because they've been given cultural meaning. And that meaning arrives because they're in conjunction with the body. But then there's the question — which body? Whose body? The making body, the wearing body, the buying body, the selling body, the geopolitical body. The synergy is there in the time—one geological, one human. So the installation became about the compression and expansion of time. And the way I distilled that was through shadow and light. 

There's only this specific moment when you see the shadows of the diamond portal and the Kasavu panels interacting and coming together—and then they separate again, back into being their own singular things. That felt very right. An ephemeral meeting of two very different timescales.

And even within the Diamond Portal, there are string beads made from ostrich eggshells by a community in Botswana. So it really becomes a story of communities and hands across the world. 

HB: The work frames adornment as a fundamental human instinct. How does that bigger story feel personal to you?

LM: It's something I work very closely with. Kasavu specifically is a very powerful marker of the body, in terms of who could wear it, and how you could wear it. Historically, it could not be worn by a lower-caste person. Only an upper-caste person could wear it all the way to the ankle. You could look at someone in Kasavu and almost immediately identify who they were — their gender, their caste, their community. So it's this material that's a potent marker of identity.

And adornment fits right there. Even between two people meeting for the first time, before a word is spoken, you've already formed some judgment based on how someone is dressed. What I wear becomes my first signal to you of who I am. In the larger spectrum of us as a species, it's a very basic impulse. As an artist, it's a very interesting space to be in—to ask what is jewellery, what is ornamentation, what is the articulation of my own body and identity through these materials.

HB: You've been working with the Balaramapuram weaving community for years. How central are they to this work?

LM: Without the community, this artwork simply would not exist. I'm not from the community. This is a two-hundred-year-old intergenerational weaving community—they're the only ones who carry the oral history, the skill, the knowledge of continuing this tradition. I can't even weave. So it's me, in conjunction with this community, that the cloth comes into being. I usually conceive the ideas, then I work with my weavers to understand what's possible on the loom. They guide me heavily on the technical side. What I'm very conscious of is that even though I'm the one conceiving the artwork, it is their voice, their skill, their language, their livelihood—and that has to be front and centre when I'm making work.

Image credits: De Beers group

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