b. 1987, Patiala, Punjab, India

An architect by education, Daras works on diverse projects ranging from visual art and craft-based designs to murals, festival décor, exhibition sets, and public art installations.

+ intuitive journeys of sound & songs.
+ experimental film art & photo stories.
+ facilitating experiential learning workshops.
+ curating immersive & reflective community spaces.

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Happiest memories of my childhood centre around my experimental instinct to craft things. That intuitive and investigative inclination led me to an architecture school where I have learned to look at spaces from diverse viewpoints and develop them around their lively needs. While working on my academic thesis to design a Residential Care Institute for Special (MR) Children, I was deeply engaged in the process of observing and understanding the special needs, behaviours and activity patterns of special children to develop corresponding spatial enclosures for them.

After completing my graduation in architecture (2007-12), I was curious to travel across the breadth of my country to experience diverse life cultures. 2013 was a year of nomadic travelling, seeking and new learnings.  

Nomadic solo journeys transform us entirely. The way we experience our unbound nature in the unknown terrains enriches our spirit. Immersed in melody, spellbound by cogent metaphors that subsist in diverse life cultures, I thought to align the essence of my learning with my artistic work journey.

In 2014, work on various art and design projects alongside slow poetry and music began.  

Alongside, in 2017, an alternative education project, Shilp Khel, was initiated that weaves craft & games to create an experiential learning environment for kids (Age 8-11).

In 2019, started crafting and facilitating the LTA’s ‘learning through art’ workshops, which intend to create an inclusive and nourishing environment for teenagers and young adults who aspire to engage deeper in the process of ‘self-discovery’ through a mindfully designed artistic space for dynamic experiences and intuitive self-expression.

Later in 2019, I realised the need to serve and facilitate some community circles where people can come to pour their hearts out and receive support and grace from a collective presence of nourishing beings. Based on intergal values of life (a nourishing ecology), Circle: Sawal-E-Safar has emerged as a conscious and courageous space for people (of all ages) to ask difficult questions, listen deeply and reflect upon the journeys of their conscious/unconscious and subconscious growth. It’s an effort to realise the integrity of life and harmonise with the rhythms of time(lessness).

Post COVID, after a beautiful PAUSE, my humble design practice continued and blossomed forth, and underneath I notice that the seeds of sound(स्वर) and words(शबद) are germinating. Year 2025 feels and seems like giving wings to a new flight. May this joyous unfolding serve and support many along the journey.

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Gratitude for all the teachers, facilitators and learning spaces that are arising, appearing and significantly transforming me in this life.

As it ordains, things grow and change.
I am feeling the eternal grace and newness in each moment.

Life is so mystical, to walk into the wild, to spend quiet moments in the nature, gazing sun and the stars, listening to the rivers, birds and winds… grounding and harmonizing with ‘what is’… to feel still, strong and fearless… and then rest, silence, sunset, and feeling love for everything in the divine play of life.

To be, and be nothing.

To be, and be nothing,

in the timelessness.

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