Before the Lights Come On
In the days leading up to an exhibition, there is a peculiar kind of silence.
The studio is full, yet our minds are louder than ever. Installations are halfway assembled, crates line the walls, glass waits patiently to be wrapped, unwrapped, lifted, adjusted. On the surface, everything looks like progress. Underneath, something else stirs.
Anxiousness.
Before India Design ID 2026, we feel it deeply.
It arrives quietly at first. In the pauses between decisions. In the moments when we stand back and look at a piece we have lived with for months and suddenly ask ourselves, Is it enough? It grows heavier at night, when the lights are off and the questions refuse to sleep.
Have we said what we wanted to say?
Will the work be understood?
Will the fragility survive the journey?
Will the forest we imagined find its way into someone else’s memory?
Exhibitions are strange that way. They are not just about showing work. They are about exposing a part of ourselves that has been quietly forming for months, sometimes years. Every installation carries more than glass and metal. It carries doubt, hope, stubborn belief, and the weight of care.
We worry about the glass. Of course we do. Glass always demands respect. It teaches you humility. You cannot rush it. You cannot force it. You must trust it. And trusting something fragile while asking it to travel, to stand tall, to glow under unfamiliar lights is its own kind of courage.
But beneath the logistical fears lies something softer, more personal.
The fear of being seen.
Each installation we bring to India Design ID is a fragment of our inner landscape. Our fascination with water. Our love for organic forms. Our belief that light can soothe. That nature, even when translated into glass, can still make someone pause.
And so we wonder: will someone stop? Will they look closely? Will they feel what we felt while making it?
In these days before the exhibition, we oscillate between confidence and vulnerability. One moment we are certain of our vision. The next, we question everything. This is the unspoken rhythm of making. Of caring deeply.
Yet, there is also a quiet resolve that settles in.
We remind ourselves why we began. Why Glass Forest exists. Why we choose to work with a material that refuses shortcuts. Why we continue to chase softness in a world that often rewards speed.
Because when the doors open and the lights come on, the anxiousness transforms.
Into anticipation.
Into stillness.
Into that moment when someone steps into our space and their shoulders drop, just a little.
And in that moment, the fears dissolve. The glass glows. The forest breathes. And we remember that vulnerability is not weakness. It is the cost of making something honest.
India Design ID 2026 is not just an exhibition for us.
It is an act of trust.