TURN BLACK X
DOYEL AND NEIL
HOWAREYOUFEELING.STUDIO
We met with Doyel Joshi and Neil Ghose Balser, the founders of Howareyoufeeling.studio based in Mumbai, India, around our studio in Shahpur Jat.
The duo exudes a grounded, lingering charm; yet their individuality is not compromised. They carried a quiet, magnetic presence—thoughtful in their ideas, assured in their style, and effortlessly warm in conversation.
Through Howareyoufeeling.studio, Joshi and Balser explore the concepts of emotion, societal constraints, and personal freedom, using large-scale works to challenge conventions and engage audiences in novel ways. Their collaborations include brands like Gucci, Hermès, and Nowness, as well as projects with India Art Fair and features in Vogue, AD i.a.
Our conversation delved into their perspectives on art in India, and globally; identity, and the intricacies of the contemporary world.
Doyel is seen wearing our Yori Embroidered Overlay with the Sho Skirt, while Neil is seen in the Jiri Jacket, Yu Top, and the Dami Pants from Perception A/W’24
First of all, how are you both feeling?
We’re feeling present and excited about the work ahead.
Our projects can take us through waves of intensity and reflection, and right now, we’re in a space of momentum—building, refining, and envisioning.
We’d love to know more about your backgrounds. Who are you? How would you describe yourself?
We both come from artistic disciplines but with different mediums shaping our perspectives. Doyel studied fashion and sculpture at Parsons in New York, exploring materiality and form through a visual lens. Neil comes from a sound and performance/acting based program also studying at Parsons and before that in Maastricht/NL. Our joint practice Howareyoufeeling.studio, exists at the intersection of these disciplines, creating work that is experiential, immersive, and deeply personal.
The launch of our work and life together started on our wedding in Rajasthan, India (2022). Installations and the concept of the wedding, how our families came together, tradition meeting contemporary motifs all found a public platform as it was picked up by Vogue India in their December issue titled “Love in the New Age” which brought our work to a wider stage.
In our own process to the wedding we noticed how In Indian weddings societal, cultural and personal catharsis finds a high expression. Our partnership and practice has created a space for us to address what disturbs, resonates and barricades our / and others expression in the world. This embodied through sculptural intervention or performance became a means to express what we already hold within and which is further molded by what we experience and perceive in the world. Generally, exploration of societal constraints and personal freedom provides a conceptual framework for us.
Themes of restriction and control, the constraints of rationality, and the oppressive influence of societal ‘rule-makers’ resonate deeply. Our vision is to create deeply personal work that finds resonance with an audience; can change the cultural DNA and makes people question things . The idea is to work on new formats of public engagement challenging contemporary practices attempting to expand the scope of what art can do outside of traditional spaces. The work is rooted both in personal heritage and traditions whilst questioning the ideas around provenance. The medium or channel can then be seen as any of more traditional distinctions as in art, music and performance but we feel intuitively drawn and thrive in merging these or breaking the boundaries creating new forms and combinations but also challenge broader ideas of how we live and work.
Neil and Doyel’s wedding at the Mandawa Castle in Rajasthan, India in 2022
You both have different cultural backgrounds. How do you navigate that internationally and also in India? What challenges have you both faced individually in navigating that identity?
Our different backgrounds—Doyel being Marwari / Indian and Neil being Bengali Indian and German — give us multiple perspectives that feel fluid and challenging. In India, where we engage deeply with the traditions, histories, and socio-political layers of the culture, but we also bring an outside lens that allows us to question.
We navigate the nuances of representation and expectation—how we are perceived plays a big role in balancing communicating who we are and what we want to say. The challenge often lies in not giving simple answers but creating an opening and thereby shaping our own narrative.
The world and culture is grappling with identity-related themes and ideas of ‘roots’, belonging, home, displacement etc. Whilst it’s very personal and challenging it’s inevitable and we embrace it with every part of our work.
Generally, we look at a future in India and outside of India. Whilst our work is deeply rooted here we grew up between the worlds. There is a growing interest within the south Asian community abroad, UAE and also traditionally Western art spaces or platforms. The art world seems to be looking at India and at the Global East (which was long overdue). It’s encouraging to get into an early position with our work to play a role there and be part of the conversation. If we do our work right, it is deeply influenced by our experience of the places we inhabit within geographical borders but is not confined by it.
Goes without saying that both of you have immaculate style. How’d you shape it? What/Who would be your biggest influencers?
Thank you, that’s very kind.
Doyel: I believe style is an evolving language, a reflection of how we move through the world. We are drawn to narratives in clothing—heritage pieces, structured forms, and things speak both symbolically and physically. For me Indian cinema from the late 90s and early 2000s played a big role in how I express myself, as did the emotional rawness of Alexander McQueen’s work just to name a few.
Neil: I’ve been deeply influenced by performance-based artist and aesthetics— the German legendary dancer Pina Bausch’s, Stromae, John Cage…
Does that translate in our style?
What has been a pivotal moment/project in your journey?
Sa Ladakh has been one of our most fulfilling projects, thanks to the Biennale’s organizers, the stunning landscape, and our collaboration with 50 Ladakhi students. As a Land Art festival, we aimed to connect with the local community and learn from their deep relationship with the land, often expressed through song and dance. Through Local Futures, we partnered with Mahabodhi School students, creating a safe space for exploration.
We wanted to create a safe space for ourselves and all the Ladakhi students between the age of 14-16 to feel viscerally, the engagement with them allowed us to explore the tension between freedom and order, obedience and disobedience, form and deform. We explored that language in their bodies, within a communal charge with very simple movements and baser instincts, physically embodying their own ideas which we believe can shift things in our minds and in the world. It’s intuitively interlinked to how we treat our environment and nature. Growing up, we all know what that stifling expression feels like – if we don’t have it we want to quite literally die. Unexpressed souls create misery, expressed souls create joy.
As this new generation leans into the future, we did workshops with them and picked up their favorite game ‘Musical Chairs‘ which became a central theme of the work. We explored charging a group, an audience and ourselves with a physical expression of individual and communal freedom. A freedom to form our own ways of thinking and interacting with the world and our own directions. It’s scary as hell. And so, using embodiment as a conduit to inner liberation. The teens choose to play and dance to their own local traditional songs with a great deal of joy. We felt, if they are able to embody that physical emotion of change or disruption. If they can understand that disorder as well as order can create beauty they could feel empowered to have a say in the land and choices they make.
Working with them was a real (good) challenge for us as they were extremely sensitive to all we did. It felt like a filter of honesty of movement and expression and we quite honestly fell in love with them. None of this would have been possible without the Sa Ladakh team’s support and the generosity of the German Embassy in Delhi.
Into The Pinke, Ladakh, Howareyoufeeling.studio
As artists working in a globalized world, how do you maintain a sense of authenticity while navigating the often commercialized international art scene?
Authenticity comes from intention. We approach each project by asking what it means to us before considering how it fits within a market or institution. While we engage with an audience or the art world, our priority is always the integrity of the work itself. If it resonates deeply, it will find its space in the world.
What role do you believe the audience has in engaging with art? Is there a specific reaction or action you hope to inspire?
Engagement is fluid. Some works invite participation, others demand contemplation. We don’t dictate how an audience should feel, but we create conditions that allow for emotion, thought, or even discomfort to emerge. The goal is always to expand perception—whether in the moment or in retrospect.
In our recent large scale installation in Mumbai ‘A Stone Marries an Egg’ we had 108 women artisans from UP Deoria perform alongside Howareyoufeeling.studio. The female artisans in pink sarees sat in communal formations, in a large gallery space. Seats were left open amid formations for the audience, encouraging them to interact; or not. Thus, it rose questions of class, social constructs and exploring the lines between artist and artisan, audience and performer. Whilst it projects a social commentary, our intention was rather in a bigger way to address ‘the source’ and show the process. This part is more central to our work where the emotion that is conjured through form, color and sound can act as a vessel for questions and layers of inner bias or inquiry.
We invite ambiguity around the experience which can allow conversation or question.
A Stone Marries An Egg, Mumbai, Howareyoufeeling.studio
The art world often reflects societal hierarchies. How do you navigate or challenge issues of power, privilege, and representation in the spaces you occupy?
We believe in participation over spectacle. Our projects often invite others to engage, rather than just observe.
This can be working with artisans in India for our project “A Stone Marries an Egg”, the Ice workers who shaped our installation “Provenance”, students in Ladakh who performed in “Into the Pinke”. We look at ways to redistribute agency within the art-making process. Power is embedded in institutions and structures, but art has the ability to shift perception—to question, to provoke, to realign.
I’d like to know more about how your projects influence you. Given your studio’s name, “Howareyoufeeling,” how do you both personally connect with the emotional core of your work? Do you have practices to ensure your mental well-being while creating emotionally intense pieces?
Neil: What a thoughtful question, thank you for asking.
The name Howareyoufeeling itself is a reminder—to ourselves and others—to be present, check in with yourself. It’s thereby at the center of everything we do, whether it’s joy, tension, grief, release or basically any emotion.
Funny enough the practice of truly listening to one’s feeling and how something may resonate seems like a radical idea.
Doyel: The emotional core for me is investigation. I believe that truly tapping into how you resonate with a given space, situation, or moment in your life allows that connection to come through in the work. At the same time, spending time on a project ideally leads to some form of resolution—whether about what we’re investigating or what we’re feeling. Not all emotions are positive, and most experiences function as inquiries rather than clear-cut answers. By the end of a project, there isn’t necessarily a resolution, but rather a deeper understanding of what that emotion does for you and how it can be channeled to refine your awareness and growth as a human being.
To stay grounded, we rely on movement, meditation… Conversations with family, friends and collaborators are also key; sometimes the work demands distance before it can be fully understood.
Neil: With mental, spiritual, and physical well-being interconnected, they seem to emerge or bloom from a state of presence with what is—an attunement to the moment—then flourish through the gentle, intentional tending of that state, poetically put. When I move or in my own exercise I love how movement or dance address all these elements and are the building blocks to ensure wellbeing.
As partners in both life and work, how do you maintain a balance between your personal relationship and professional collaboration?
It’s actually less about balance and more about integration. Our personal life informs our work and vice versa. The conversations we have, the questions we ask, and the experiences we go through together all feed into our creative practice. It’s exciting yet challenging, we allow space for individuality while trusting that our shared vision is strongest when both of us are fully present in it. It’s always been like this, at university Doyel’s thesis was the first project we worked on together and which we got to know each other on. Neil did the sound and performance part for that work.
In the Zeitgeist there surely seems to also be a moment that draws us to creative partnerships, maybe as a result of societal distancing is happening. In our expression and work we are mindful that we are at a time where we can lead with our personal stories. Thus for an audience knowing the writers of these stories and their process can change the dynamics of how we consume stories, how deeply we let things resonate.
Maybe our wedding was a good example, we playfully called it ‘Howareyoufeeling.Marriage’ on invites, website etc. and the installations and part of the ceremonies “Howareyoufeeling.studio”. That allowed us to create a spectrum of perception for guests between tradition and art, work and life.
Could you share any upcoming projects or exhibitions that you’re excited about? What new directions or themes are you exploring?
We’re very excited about a project commissioned by Anoushka Shankar in Brighton/UK in May. We will be doing a large scale public installation throughout the month and have conceived the Brochure cover.
We’re working on our first architectural project of a 4k square feet space in Mumbai opening in April. For that we worked with architects, engineers and different fields which was greatly enriching.
Neil and Doyel are currently developing a public installation and designing the brochure cover for Brighton Festival 2025, in collaboration with Anoushka Shankar, this May’s guest curator, along with other creative projects.
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