When I think about water in Jodhpur everything goes silver and I see an archipelago of baoris, jhalras and talabs: stepwells, ponds, lakes, reservoirs and watercourses. A network of neural pathways that relay the city’s lived experience and prompt adaptive responses to climatic, hydrological and geological challenges. Water has always been a currency here, transforming the apparent deficit of the Thar’s tropical desert climate into a surplus of cultural abundance. As an active element and necessary catalyst in varied processes of making, water has its own materiality and informs Jodhpur’s flourishing traditions of making, its idioms of narrative, dialogue and translation. In this city that has been sustained for centuries by visionary techniques of water-table management and rainwater harvesting, we hope to create a constellation of forms in which the arts, crafts and sciences can come together in unpredictable and inspiring ways.

- Ranjit Hoskote