4,500 Terracotta Diyas Presented By Bvlgari & Doyel Joshi At Jaipur’s City Palace

The Indian diya derives much of its power from its ordinariness. Held in the hand, placed in intimate corners and lit as part of a ritual in spaces imbued with personal and collective memory. Yet, multiplied into an installation of thousands, this humble object assumes a different register when transformed from the intimate into the monumental.It is this interplay between the mundane and the extraordinary that lies at the heart of ‘Passing the Light’, a collaborative installation by Italian luxury jewellery maison Bvlgari and Indian artist Doyel Joshi. 

Unveiled in the City Palace Jaipur on 11 October 2026, the work brings together 4,500 hand-sculpted terracotta diyas, reimagining a symbol of light on an expansive architectural scale.

The project forms part of Bvlgari’s first global Diwali campaign. Speaking about the significance of the collaboration, Bvlgari CEO Laura Burdese says, “India holds a place of profound significance in Bvlgari’s story. Its extraordinary heritage of artistry, craftsmanship and ritual has long inspired our way of seeing, creating and engaging with the country. Diwali, with its timeless celebration of light, speaks to something deeply universal: the renewal of hope, the strength of togetherness, and the enduring power of tradition to illuminate the present. This year, that spirit finds a deeply personal expression through our collaboration with artist Doyel Joshi.”

Joshi is a prominent Mumbai based multi-disciplinary artist and designer known for his immersive large scale installations and public art. He is also the co-founder of HowAreYouFeeling Studio, a multidisciplinary creative lab focused on exploring human emotions and societal boundaries through art. His previous collaborations include Christian Louboutin’s Rayon de Lumiere in Mumbai.

The Architecture of Terracotta

The installation’s repeating diya forms draw their visual rhythm from the hypnotic geometry of Bvlgari Serpenti’s iconic scales motif. In terracotta, these sculptural elements focus not only on the material itself, but also on the knowledge embedded within it: inherited skills, enduring rituals and traditions passed from one maker to the next. This intergenerational transmission of craft finds a parallel in Bvlgari’s own ateliers, where techniques are preserved and passed down through generations of goldsmiths.

As Joshi explains, “Terracotta is not a humble material. It is a universal one. A diya belongs to the street and to the palace equally; it transcends socio-economic structures. Celebrations are collective, not singular. Working with Bvlgari on this installation has been a conversation between two very different histories of making, one shaped in clay, the other in gold, that speak, in the end, the same language of transmission. This installation carries the generational knowledge of the earth it is made from and the hands that made it, passing the light forward.”

Passing the Light

Light is central to the installation’s conceptual premise. Associated with hope, renewal and the triumph of light over darkness, the diya moves beyond its functional purpose to acquire a larger sculptural and symbolic presence. Its meaning is rooted as much in the materiality of clay as in the cultural significance of illumination.

Much like a flame passed from one diya to another without diminishing its own radiance, artisanal knowledge endures through its transmission across generations. This becomes the conceptual thread connecting Joshi’s engagement with terracotta and Bvlgari’s heritage of fine craftsmanship. Light, in this context, bridges the intimate and the monumental, the traditional and the contemporary, bringing two distinct histories of making into a shared conversation about continuity, collective memory and the enduring value of craft.

‘Passing the Light’ opens up a broader line of inquiry: what happens when a functional object transcends its everyday purpose to become a sculptural form? The installation invites a wider reflection on the place of craft in contemporary art and design, and on the enduring relationship between the hand and the object it shapes. In doing so, it foregrounds the value of material knowledge and human labour as artistic expression.