Artist Highlight - Eunice Daniel

1. Intertwine grows from Poo Korthal, the Tamil practice of stringing flowers for adornment. What memories or sensations do you associate most strongly with that tradition?

I have always been fascinated by the jasmine stringing practice, having grown up with the scent of jasmine around me. The practice of stringing jasmine is so embedded in everyday life that you see women selling and stringing flowers on the roadside and in markets, often with baskets full of jasmine. One of my earliest memories of scent is Madurai malli (Jasmine Sambac), which is particularly known for its fragrance. Every Christmas, when visiting my relatives, my aunts and my grandmother would string a small garland for my hair. Even when my hair was tiny, they would make one just to pin on top of it. Till today, the smell of jasmine still feels deeply nostalgic to me.

2. Fresh flower garlands are temporary, fragrant and constantly changing. What happens when their structure is translated into leather?

Translating the structure of a flower garland into leather allows something temporary to become lasting. The leather flowers can be preserved and worn as pieces of adornment, without the limitations of their perishable nature. However, I don’t see my work as replacing the beauty of fresh flowers and that impermanence is part of their beauty. Instead, I wanted to create pieces that carry something of that tradition forward: objects that can be worn, kept and potentially passed down through generations.

3. The enlarged petals give the familiar practice of flower stringing a much stronger physical presence. What drew you to exaggerating the scale of the flowers?

I wanted to create statement pieces that allowed me to play with the form and scale of the flowers. I didn’t want them to feel like jewellery in the traditional sense, but to sit somewhere between jewellery and accessories, and the scale helped me explore that space. Working with leather also gave me the opportunity to highlight the beauty of the material, I felt that smaller flowers wouldn’t do it justice. The scale also helped make the stringing technique more visible. For instance, in the OODI belt, the pieces are strung together using the same technique used for jasmine garlands, which holds the belt together.

4. Every petal is moulded and dyed separately. How does this process relate to the individuality of each flower?

I wanted every piece to be entirely handcrafted, with each petal individually dyed and moulded. Because I work with different leather offcuts, the dye penetrates each piece differently, creating subtle variations in colour and finish. They will never look exactly the same, much like the petals of a real flower, each with its own shape, markings and natural variations. I wanted to capture that individuality in leather. The repetition of hand dyeing and moulding each petal became a way of preserving the uniqueness of each flower, rather than making every element appear perfectly uniform.

5. The collection is made with the Indian diaspora in mind. What does it mean to bring a familiar cultural practice into a new place and context?

I see the Indian diaspora as global ambassadors of culture. I’ve always noticed how they carry hints of their culture with them, especially through what they wear, and I wanted Intertwine to be something they could relate to. They may recognise the practice through their own memories, or through their parents and families. Bringing it into a new context also allows me to share my own experience of flowers and how I grew up seeing them strung together to create beautiful garlands. Many cultures have their own traditions of stringing flowers, but this is my way of sharing the practice I know and inviting others to see it differently.

6. The titles OODI, SAVURI and MALAI give the works a particular cultural grounding. What do those names bring to the way the pieces are understood?

I wanted the names of the pieces to remain culturally grounded, while not taking the original names in their entirety. Instead, I took a part of each term as a reference, adapting it to reflect how I have translated these cultural forms into my own work.

OODI - Inspired by Oddiyanam, a traditional waist ornament worn with a saree, particularly for special occasions. The name is a shortened reference to this form.

SAVURI - Taken from Savuri mudi, referring to the hair extensions traditionally added to the hair to create length and volume.

MALAI - Malai means “garland” in Tamil, directly connecting the piece to the flower garlands that inspired its form.

7. When someone wears one of these pieces without knowing the original tradition, what would you hope they still sense through the material and shape?

Flowers are a universal language. Irrespective of where you come from or what flowers exist in your part of the world, they carry a sense of beauty and familiarity. I hope that, even without knowing the tradition, wearing these pieces creates a feeling of being connected to the flowers and to nature. By translating flowers into leather, a material that comes from nature, I wanted to create something that feels as though it is moving with the body rather than simply sitting on it. In a way, the wearer becomes part of the flowers.