Agency

‍

The OPEN Design Talks by Border&Fall at the India Art Fair are framed by the often-unseen intervals within and around design practice, where ideas form and decisions take shape. Across five nuanced sessions, the programme unpacks these “spaces between” through conversations with diverse practitioners, examining narrative agency, material memory, visual culture, and the inflection points shaping both individuals and industry. As the fair’s inaugural design talks series, outlines a framework for shared authorship and collective insight, positioning India as an active, central voice in contemporary global design.

‍

February 6-8, 2026 

India Art Fair - NSIC Grounds, New Delhi, India 

‍

‍

#1 At The Table

‍

This session examines the act of gathering as a framework shaped by visual culture, method, and repeated ways of thinking. Practitioners will present visual references—from archives to materials and environments—and reflect on how these shape design decisions across food, objects, and space. Situated within the Indian context, the conversation considers a rapidly expanding visual vocabulary—one that is both richly layered and, at times, self-referential—and asks how designers sustain relevance through experimentation, iteration, and new ways of seeing
and gathering.

‍

Daksha Salam
Multidisciplinary Designer 
Prerna Garg
Founder, A Dialogue
Priyansha Jain
Founder and Creative Director, InOrdinary Practice
Tahir Sultan 
CEO and Founder, Makaan

#2 The Unfinished Horizon

‍

This session engages practitioners whose work has shaped the global design landscape through attentive ways of seeing and sustained commitment to practice. It explores how expansive thinking emerges from deep immersion—within local ecologies, global exchanges, and long-term engagement—and considers how designers build frameworks of care, responsibility, and reflection. The session examines how far-reaching visions are formed, recalibrated, and extended in response to shifting contexts and evolving sensibilities.

‍

Maximiliano Modesti
Founder, Les Ateliers 2M
Meneesha Kellay
Lead Curator, Contemporary South Asia exhibition, V&A
Nacho Carbonell
Artist and Designer    
Florence Louisy
Creative Director Aequo
Malika Verma
Founder, Border&Fall 

#3 Reclaiming the Made World

‍

The earliest objects emerged from necessity and materials close at hand. Today, amid abundance and waste, returning to what already exists carries renewed urgency. This session explores how designers reimagine material life cycles—from extraction to circulation, novelty to continuity—and how working with remnants and histories becomes a way of reading the present. It considers reuse as both an ethical practice and a form of cultural archaeology.

‍

Lokesh Ghai
Independent Researcher and Artist
Priyanka Shah
Head Designer and Founder, SHED
Ritwik Khanna
Founder and Creative Director, Rkive City
Sarita Sundar
Designer and Design Historian - Founder, Hanno
Malika Verma
Founder, Border&Fall 

#4 Commons of Design

‍

Design ecosystems rely on a network of institutions, patrons, policymakers, curators and retailers. This session examines how value is created, circulated, and safeguarded across these roles, and who gains access as a result. By analysing intellectual, institutional, and material frameworks—from pedagogy and policy to production—it considers how collaborative structures shape the cultural and economic life of design.

‍

Michelle Millar Fisher
Curator of Contemporary Decorative Arts, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Pramod Kumar KG
Managing Director- Eka Archiving Services
Santosh Desai
Founder and Director - Think9 Consumer Technologies Pvt Ltd
Malika Verma
Founder, Border&Fall 

#5 Reading the Indian City 

‍

Indian cities are layered environments shaped by histories, migrations, rituals, and everyday making. Through a series of three presentations, this session considers how designers and patrons might read these cities not as blank sites for intervention, but as places rich with cultural authorship. It asks how architecture and planning can work with what already exists—honouring inherited landscapes while enabling new forms of collective life.

‍

Annapurna Garimella
Art historian and Designer
V Sunil
Founder, Motherland Joint Ventures
Vikrom Mathur
Founding Director, Transitions Research
Branding
Border&Fall is involved in branding atvarious levels. From conceptualisation to creating a distinct tone of voice, Border&Fall engages with developing a unique identity for the brand.
Branding
Border&Fall is involved in branding atvarious levels. From conceptualisation to creating a distinct tone of voice, Border&Fall engages with developing a unique identity for the brand.
Communication
We help identify the right strategic positioning that will help communicate the brand’s core philosophy and develop a robust strategy for the brand’s future growth at Border&Fall.
Design & Creative Direction
Border&Fall engages with the client across diverse verticals including planning events, campaigns and collections. This also involves writing collection notes and developing the right tone for lookbooks.

Malika Verma is a brand strategist and vocal craft advocate whose work is centered on shaping future narratives within craft and design.

‍
With an interest in democratic access, she translates the nuances of handmade industries into thoughtful and impactful brands across design, craft, and culture. She is the founder of Border&Fall, a pioneering agency dedicated to shifting perceptions of the handmade.

‍

Malika has been a key stakeholder in Raw Mango since 2016, guiding its growth through communication, product development, retail expansion, and strategic advisory. She continues to lead its international and special projects.

‍

Her work in craft advocacy includes building digitally scalable platforms of change such as The Sari Series: An Anthology of Drape, a critically acclaimed digital documentation of India’s regional sari drapes, shortlisted for the Beazley Designs of the Year (2020).

‍

She also developed ƚilpa: Catalogues on Craft, a series of digital craft catalogues for creative practitioners and businesses.

‍

Malika serves on the advisory boards of the Kalhath Institute (Lucknow) and League of Artisans, and was on the Advisory Council for MoMA’s 2019 exhibition "Items: Is Fashion Modern?". She is a jury member for the ADxJSW Prize for Contemporary Craftsmanship (2019–2023) and a Contributing Editor for Architectural Digest India. Her writing has appeared in Designing Motherhood (MIT Press, 2021), Vogue, Mint, Harper's Bazaar India, and ELLE. She has also spoken on the power of “Handmade in India” as a guest lecturer at academic institutions. She is based between New York City and India.

‍

ADVISORY
League of Artisans, Advisory Board
2023 — present
Kalhath Institute, Lucknow Advisory Board
2016 — PRESENT
Advisory JSW X Architectural Digest Prize for Craftsmanship
2018 — 2024
MoMA, New York Advisory Council, 'Items: Is Fashion Modern?'
2017
SELECT SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS
Rhode Island School of Design, Guest Lecturer
2025, Rhode island, usa
NYU Steinhardt School, Guest Lecturer
2025-2024, new york, usa
British Council
2022, 2016, INDIA
Parsons School of Design, Guest Lecturer
2018, new york, usa
Fashion Design Council of India
2018, New Delhi, india
High Commission of Canada
2018, new delhi, india
Jaipur Literature Festival
2018, Jaipur, india
Fashion Institute of Technology
2017, new york, usa
Mountain Echoes Literary Festival
2017, thimpu, bhutan
CITATIONS AND WRITINGS
The Creative Independent
2025
The Offbeat Sari
2023, Design museum, LONDON
Designing Motherhood - Essay
2021, MIT PRESS
Grand Dames of Craft - Article
2019- ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST, INDIA
‘Casual Life Woman Trend Book FW 20-21’
2019- Peclers, paris
‘Items: Is Fashion Modern?’
2017- the museum of modern art, new york
'Made in Bengaluru'
2017- Fiona Caulfield & Maegan Dobson Sippy
‘Sar: The Essence of Indian Design’
2016- rashmi varma & swapnaa tamhane
'The Fabric of India'
2015- the victoria and albert museum, london