image 

Birth, death, rite of passage … gold was integral to every key moment of life in Kerala, and traditional goldsmiths who fashioned beautiful ornaments to mark these moments occupied the most exalted position among all craftsmen. The act of making an ornament was deeply imbued with mythology, poetry, ethics, aesthetics, and a close relationship between the metal, the craftsman, and society.   

In more recent times gold plays a different, and far more ostentatious, role.  As a socially accepted definer of status and social worth it has generated an obsessive hunger which demands a new breed of gold workers and new modes of production. Suvarnam uses the filter of gold to look at tradition, change, and the growing sense of loss and isolation in modern society.