Historical & Visual Research

Hand-drawn Illustration Murals

With its unique visual language that felt like ‘walking into a sketchbook,’ Smoke House Deli had already begun to realise the immense potential of holding the attention of diners – a uniquely captive audience – with intriguing drawings, nuggets of information and jokes on its walls.

Turmeric was invited to take that idea forward: to tell rich, multi-layered stories of the history of two of Delhi’s most iconic neighbourhoods. Imagine enough information to fill a museum, but in a playful, fun format that intrigues you into discovering it, bit by bit.

At Khan Market, we drew stories of that peculiar, post-partition, colonial-Punjabi sensibility of 1960s Central Delhi, while at HKV, we explored the area’s layers of rebirths: from its 13th century context, to urban village, to hipster creative hub. We researched, visualised and drew hundreds of drawings by hand onto the walls, building layers of narratives, both spatially, as well as within each wall’s contents, to facilitate different levels of engagement over multiple visits. QR codes pasted into each wall encourage visitors to visit microsites with information. But most just end up calling us for stories!