Established in 2011 by Nimish Shah, Shift is a contemporary design practice rooted in an ongoing exploration of Indian materials, craftsmanship and ways of making. Its philosophy is grounded in common-sense sustainability — an instinct to work with what exists and to find value in processes that are often overlooked. This is expressed through Gandhian Modernism, a sensibility that places material intelligence and restraint at the centre of design.

At the heart of this thinking is Masstiege Craft: the meeting of industry’s scale with the irregularity, tactility and human character of craft. It is less a distinction between handmade and industrial than an opportunity to reconsider what each can offer the other. This spirit of exchange extends beyond objects. The annual Artist Residency, established in 2025, brings mid-career artists into unfamiliar industrial environments to explore new forms of creating and authorship.

The work is ultimately concerned with reinterpretation — taking materials, techniques with an established history and placing them in a contemporary context. The result is neither nostalgic nor deliberately new, but something more considered: a way of looking at Indian design through what is present, and discovering what else it might become.