Aurus Jewels collaborate with Border & Fall to revive the Diminishing Diversities of Indian Jewellery through the Memory Project - IFJ

GLOBAL PR CONNECT (GPRC)
New Delhi [India], August 22: India has a diverse and deep-rooted heritage of making and wearing jewellery. It has always got looked upon for various aspects far beyond aesthetics and a mere object of adornment— it taps into an individual's emotional, cultural, and economic aspects. And since it survives far longer than any other personal object, it becomes a key marker of material memory. Family Jewels: Indian Adornment Revealed, or Indian Family Jewels (IFJ), is an online documentation project that attempts to reawaken the awareness of this diversity and embrace it openly.
A passion project of Puja and Kunal Shah of Aurus Amdavad, a design-led fine Indian jewellery brand,
is an effort to impart knowledge of the distinction between India’s precious jewellery, recognising many of its roots, including tribal, agrarian, trade-based, or royal. Through this project, in collaboration with Border & Fall, a platform that documents India’s design industry, the husband-wife duo is attempting to capture, catalogue, and create awareness about the varied types of jewellery worn across the country.
“IFJ holds a profound significance for me, tracing its genesis back to my cherished childhood memories and the influential women who shaped my initial understanding and deep love for jewellery. It is through my paternal grandmother (Dadima) and my maternal grandmother (Nani) that I discovered the essence of my passion,” says Puja, patron of IFJ.
New India’s Desire to Connect to Roots
The newer generations of the Indian diaspora across the world are wholeheartedly embracing their Indian origins and wanting to immerse themselves in the culture. They have set on a journey to seek information on our country’s rich art, cultural history, textile, and jewellery. At the same time, they are getting more exposed to the world and are finding pride in India’s place in the world order with a realisation that while Westernization was a concept, being Indian is much more. IFJ wishes to make this journey to discover the history of jewellery more approachable and of interest to a wider audience. We intend to layer the core narrative with human stories with which people can relate, along with personal anecdotes relating to jewellery.
“For Puja and me, this project goes back to 1999 when we were graduate students in the USA. When trying to assimilate within the larger society, it was a struggle to see that many things that were synonymous with being an Indian were seen as culturally inferior. But in the last 20 years, we think that India has changed. All of a sudden, it feels that our country has arrived. Children of our cousins in the US now seem proud of everything Indian and are embracing the whole idea of ‘India’. Young Indians want to embrace their roots. Listen to their grandmoms. And when a grandmom is part of the conversation, can you leave behind the anecdotes?” says Kunal, patron of IFJ.
Talking about the significance of this project at this juncture in time, Kunal adds, “Jewellery is a material memory keeper. It represents the times it got made in, but more importantly, it becomes a marker for future generations. Most of our fine jewellery history is in academic times. And this is where our project started taking form. Indian Family Jewels are our bit to document our jewellery heritage in a format calibrated for the digitally native and celebrate the hands that make our jewellery, their history, and how a certain stone, technique, or motif came into being. And to dig up contextual family stories around jewellery and document them alongside.” 
(Disclaimer: The above press release has been provided by GLOBAL PR CONNECT (GPRC). ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same)