Dastkari Haat Crafts Bazaar Returns to Chennai After a Decade – A Living Canvas of India’s Handmade Traditions

Chennai | 30 January – 5 February 2026

After nearly ten years, one of India’s most respected craft platforms returns to Chennai. Dastkari Haat Crafts Bazaar, curated by Dastkari Haat Samiti, re-emerges in the city with a week-long celebration of India’s living craft traditions, from 30th January to 5th February 2026, at the NIFT Campus, Rajiv Gandhi Salai, Tharamani.

Once fondly remembered for transforming the shaded environs of the Kalakshetra Campus into a vibrant craftscape, Dastkari Haat now comes to NIFT Chennai , one of India’s premier institutes for fashion, design, technology and management, known for nurturing creative talent since its establishment in 1995. It returns with renewed energy inviting Chennai to pause, reconnect, and rediscover the handmade.

Open daily from 11:30 am to 7:30 pm, the bazaar brings together master artisans, weavers, painters, and craft communities from across India, presenting works that are deeply traditional yet relevant to contemporary life.

Dastkari Haat is not merely a marketplace,it is a living canvas of India’s cultural memory, where every weave carries lineage, every colour holds history, and every artisan stands as a custodian of tradition.

Visitors will encounter a rich range of traditional and contemporary crafts, including:

• Textiles & Weaves: Ajrakh block prints, Ikat weaving, Chanderi, Maheshwari, Jamdani, Banarasi weaves, Bandhani, Patteda Anchu, Patola weaving, Gamchha weaving, carpet weaving from Uttar Pradesh and Kashmir, and loom-woven textiles from across the country.
• Embroidery & Surface Arts: Chikankari, Kantha, Soof embroidery from Kutch, Crewel embroidery from Kashmir, mud-mirror work from Gujarat.

• Traditional Paintings & Art Forms: Pattachitra, Pichhwai, Gond, Kalighat, Godna, Madhubani, Phad paintings, and Shajhi art.
• Crafts & Objects: Dhokra, bamboo and cane crafts, wood carving with brass inlay, bone inlay, silver filigree jewellery, terracotta, ceramics, seashell crafts, glass bangles, jute rugs, handmade paper (including elephant-poo paper), toys from Channapatna, and metal crafts from Odisha and West Bengal.

This edition introduces several exceptional and rare craft practitioners, including:

• A Pattachitra artist from West Bengal presenting painted scrolls accompanied by traditional songs
• Gold-leaf embossed Pichhwais from Rajasthan
• Natural grass baskets and fine mats from West Bengal
• Silver jewellery from Odisha
• Ajrakh block printing from Gujarat
• Pattu weaving from Rajasthan
• Jute durries from Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh

Adding rhythm and flavour to the bazaar are Chhau dance performances from West Bengal and traditional Rajasthani cuisine, making the experience immersive and multisensory.

The bazaar will be inaugurated on 30th January 2026 at 5:00 pm by Ms. Leela Samson, renowned dancer and guru, and a long-standing supporter and friend of Dastkari Haat Samiti, who has graciously agreed to bless the artisans and the event.

“Chennai, after a decade, we are ready,” says Ms Jaya Jaitly, Founder of Dastkari Haat Samiti. “Ready to present, ready to welcome, ready to unfold stories – slowly, thoughtfully, and with care.” She adds.

This bazaar is meant to be walked slowly, seen deeply, and remembered long after. A space to reconnect with craft, with people, and with the joy of the handmade, as it was always meant to be experienced.

Event Details

 Venue: NIFT Campus, Rajiv Gandhi Salai, Tharamani, Chennai, Tamil Nadu
 Dates: 30 January – 5 February 2026
 Time: 11:30 am – 7:30 pm

Follow the journey and stories from the bazaar on Instagram:
@dastkarihaatsamiti
Website:
www.dastkarihaat.com

Jaya Jaitly created Dilli Haat, a permanent and now iconic crafts marketplace in Delhi in 1994. She works to link crafts persons to a variety of markets through innovative strategies like creating artistic crafts maps and organising over 15 international workshops with foreign artisans and Indian counterparts to further diplomacy and India’s soft power.

Jaitly linked crafts and calligraphy through an exhibition called Akshara, combining Crafts, Textiles, Arts and Calligraphy designed and created by craftspeople of her organisation.

She headed a major project with Google Arts & Culture titled Crafted in India (G.co/craftedinindia) to present the largest online exposition of craft stories online in the world. This was launched in October 2019 with Google and the Ministry of Tourism.

Recently Jaitly conceived of and guided the creation of 8 art, craft and textile installations for the Shilp Deergha of the New Parliament building with a large team of craftspeople.

Her published works, apart from hundreds of articles, and essays, include the Crafts of Gujarat, Crafts of Jammu, Kashmir & Ladakh, Crafting Nature, Craft Traditions of India, Crafts Atlas of India, The Artistry of Handwork, The Woven Textiles of Varanasi, A Podium on the Pavement, and Viswakarma’s Children. Crafting Indian Scripts was published in 2015 along with the Akshara exhibition. Her most recent work is Life among the Scorpions – a memoir of a woman in Indian politics”.She has also written children’s stories published by Penguin, Pratham ,and recently Niyogi Books., and gives lectures at educational and cultural institutions.

She has served on many advisory and policy-making bodies and brings to all her public work the experiences and perceptions acquired from three decades in active politics and more than four decades in craft.

In 2022 she received the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay Lifetime Achievement Award from the Crafts Council of India , and in November 2025 she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from AD/JSW.