Kulture Shop

Kulture Shop is a shop, curator, and promoter and supporter for emerging and established Indian graphic artists from around the world that is located in the busy junction of Bandra in Mumbai. Walking into their beautiful and stylish shop which is a combination of showroom and studio, it felt as if I walked into an art gallery in New York City. The showroom gives you a fresh breeze of refreshing modern art. Kulture Shop started selling art work done by their talented artists in the forms of T-shirt and print to hang on the walls. The reasoning behind these two items to start with was that everyone wears clothes and everyone has a wall. Kulture Shop curates the types of art by providing their artists with themes. The themes have cultural aspects and that is what the name of the company “Kulture Shop” suggests. The reason for exclusively working with Indian artists is because of that point. The artwork they seek requires the Indian cultural nuances which can only be incorporated into art work with the knowledge and understanding of its culture. I feel that Kulture Shop is the harbinger of the Indian modern art to bring the talented artists to the world otherwise hidden by presenting their original and one-of-a-kind art work that you can only find at Kulture Shop. I especially love their sense of humor in the work.

If you like modern and graphic art, Kulture Shop is a great place to find artwork as a souvenir or keepsake from India for anyone who have lived or still live in India because the art pieces tell something or a story about India. The cutting edge designs of work showcased at Kulture Shop are very different from the traditional Indian art that seems more abundant in India. Sometimes I feel that the modern art by Indian designers are shadowed by the traditional Indian art. The Indian graphic art has special appeal to the world because the graphic design is universal, yet it is unique to India. I think that’s what drew me to the art work at Kulture Shop. If you are interested to see the work featured by Kulture Shop on their website, you can browse art work by themes which is fun to see while it will help you narrow down the selections for you.

I was greeted by the cutest CEO ever. I’m kidding about the CEO part just in case, but let me introduce you to Sumo in the photo below. Yes, Sumo like a Sumo wrestler in Japan. You’ll get to meet lovely Sumo when you visit Kulture Shop. From here, I would like for you to enjoy the virtual tour of Kulture Shop through my photography to see what kind of work they sell.

KULTURE SHOP is the brainchild of founder and CEO Arjun Charanjiva. Though he wasn’t around that day, I had a lovely opportunity to talk with Jas and Kunal, two of his co-founders of Kulture Shop, while I took their photos. I have first learned about Kulture Shop through Instagram account when I started Instagramming at the beginning of 2014. Their modern art and out-of-a-box concept was very striking to me. They told me how the Kulture Shop was born. Their mission is to put a spotlight on the artists and their work so that their work can be appreciated and made accessible for others to own and enjoy in their daily lives. I was trying to listen to them very carefully, but I had a migraine headache at the time and I was not taking notes or recording the conversation, so it was hard for me to recall the exact words that they used to describe.

The good news is that there is a beautifully written interview done on Kulture Shop by Sheena of her lovely blog This Is Sheena. She has written a post “Small Talk With Kulture Shop” which explains about the stories behind the shop in the interview. Sheena is one of the people who recommended me going to Kulture Shop when I had a lovely opportunity to meet her by accident on a random day. As an admirer of her work, I took a mental note to visit. She is also an author of Mumbai City Guide which was published on Design*Sponge. If you live in Mumbai or plan on visiting Mumbai, I highly recommend checking out her guide.

The Kulture Shop show room is a shop as well as art studio. It was inspiring to observe how the creative work is done in the studio. They are the lucky ones to work in such a cool office environment.

Kulture Shop

Monday To Sunday 11 a.m. – 7 p.m.

Hill View 2,
No. 201
241 Hill Road,
Bandra West
Opposite Mehboob Studio
Above DCB Bank

For Morning or Late Night Visits:
Please contact:
INFO@KULTURESHOP.IN
(022)26550982

More information on Kulture Shop’s About page.

Side Note

I met Jas, one of the co-founders and the coolest street artist from New York, before this visit. She has invited me to the launch party for Wallpaper* City Guide for Mumbai, which they sell at their shop. You can read about the launch event post I have written here. I was very honored. Then she told me that she’s the one who organized the wall art for my friend’s son whose picture I posted on my Instagram account. She was browsing my Instagram account and saw the photo of the graffiti! Isn’t it such a small world?