'Water Memories' Is A Homegrown Artbook Depicting The Bond Between Rivers & Civilisation

For as long as we’ve tried to make sense of time and being, we’ve looked to rivers. Winding and patient, persistent yet unpredictable — rivers have been our metaphors for memory, movement, and for life itself. They carve through stone, carry stories, witness birth and decay. We turn to them when we want to speak of things too big for words like time, consciousness, continuity, loss, and longing.

'Water Memories', a new limited-edition book, steps right into that current. Through a curated collection of art, photography and design, it honours the role of rivers, not only in shaping landscapes but also in shaping us. And it does this by bringing together a powerful assembly of artistic voices, each interpreting water as as a thread connecting us all.

The book showcases the private collection of Nalini and Haridas Swali, alongside works by an impressive roster of artists: Manu Parekh, Rithika Merchant, Vibha Galhotra, Barthélémy Toguo, Karishma Swali and the Moonray Collective, Rafique Sayed, Reena Saini Kallat, Hari Katragadda, Tenzin Lhagyal, Deshna Mehta, Philippe Calia, and Aditi Singh. It’s a visual meditation on the many ways water lives in our imagination — and in our daily lives.

Designed and shaped by homegrown label Moonray, Water Memories is a cultural gesture and a call to action. The net proceeds from the book will go to Paani Foundation, which works with communities in drought-prone areas of Maharashtra to rebuild local water ecosystems and champion regenerative practices.

At the heart of the project are four standout works — Ganga, Brahmaputra, Narmada, and Krishna, woven with jute, linen, and cotton by the artisans of the Chanakya School of Craft, using Saori and table looms. These works, layered with intention, reflect the textured relationship between rivers and the artisanal communities they nourish.

Conceived by Karishma Swali and the Moonray Collective and their print debut, Water Memories is part art object, part ecological intervention. It reminds us that the rivers we romanticise are also endangered — and their survival is tethered to ours.

This book is available in Moonray’s Mumbai and Delhi studios and on their website.

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