The eye is one of humankind’s oldest and most universal symbols. It appears across cultures and time: from the evil eye, a protective talisman originating over 5,000 years ago in the Mediterranean and the Middle East, to the ‘wedjat’ or Eye of Horus, dating back to ancient Egypt, and the ‘ajna’ or third eye in Hinduism and Buddhism. The eye has always symbolised divine knowledge, protection, vigilance, desire, judgement, and power. Across ancient Egypt, the Eye of Horus promised healing and protection. The Greek ‘mati’ and the Turkish ‘nazar boncuğu’ continue to guard homes and bodies against envy and ill fortune. In Indigenous cosmologies across the Americas and Australia, the eye often signifies ancestral presence and spiritual vision. To be seen has always carried consequences; to see has always been an act of authority.

Bhavya Ramesh and NorBlack NorWhite’s latest collaboration, ‘STARE’, draws inspiration from powerful symbols across cultures — symbols like the eye and the serpent reappear throughout the collection as protective talismans that both draw and repel society’s oppressive gaze.

Bhavya Ramesh has long built a practice around jewellery that draw from mythology, ritual objects, and organic forms, blurring the boundaries between artefact and contemporary design. NorBlack NorWhite, meanwhile, has consistently championed Indian textile traditions through a distinctly global visual language, collaborating with artisans while challenging conventional ideas of femininity and South Asian fashion. ‘STARE’ is the inevitable meeting point between these two practices.

Across the collection, rings, thimbles, necklaces, earrings, and chains featuring recurring motifs of the eye, the serpent — another ancient symbol of forbidden wisdom, desires, and rebirth — and the chilli evoke ancient symbols of protection and subversion. The eye stands out especially as a metaphor for reclaiming visibility in a culture where women’s bodies are constantly looked at, assessed, and surveilled. ‘STARE’ asks what happens when they become active participants in the exchange of looking and rage against this endless gaze. The campaign, featuring Tilottoma Shome and directed by Bijoy Shetty (Big Dawgs, Run It Up, Paraloka), in another collaboration with Ramesh after Paraloka, takes viewers to the wilderness of Kerala where strange, folkloric figures subvert social expectations. Running through the forest, Shome’s character disappears in a refusal to be seen, and elsewhere, a ‘chudail’ or South Asian female spirit with backward feet sits on a branch tending to her wild, unkempt hair, daring viewers to look at her.

‘STARE’ reminds us that symbols endure because they evolve. By reimagining these ancient motifs through contemporary jewellery and cinematic storytelling, Bhavya Ramesh, Bijoy Shetty, and NorBlack NorWhite transform adornment into a language of agency — reframing what these symbols can mean in a world shaped by mass surveillance and constant visibility.

‘STARE’ is now available in stores and online. Follow @bhavyarameshjewelry, @norblacknorwhite, and @whatsabijoy on Instagram.

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