FREEWHEELING with Freedom Tree
'I was a Rebel without a Cause', says House of Berserk founder, Priyanka Thaker.
I live and breathe colours. People say that ‘oh, life is black and white’ and I was like, ‘my ass - not’.
@HouseofBerserk
April 2025
With a name like House of Berserk, prepare to be afraid. Be very afraid of the creative force that’s coming your way. Priyanka Thaker’s reputation precedes her presence. Her diminutive form is then a surprise. She owns the room when she walks into our Design store in Mahalaxmi, Mumbai. A modern Devi, in a red dress and boots. Kohl rimmed eyes, tribal jewelry and tattoos giving rhythm to her expressive hands.
WWho am I?
W“So I'm trained to be an architect, but I never practiced architecture, so I don't call myself an architect. I am not trained to be an artist, but what I do - if you were to closely look at it - might fall into the category of arts. But since I'm not trained to be an artist, I don't call myself an artist either. What I would rather be as a studio is a storyteller.
So, I would like to call myself as a storyteller and I would like House of Berserk remembered as a narrative-based studio, a storyteller studio.”
The Storyteller
WHouse of Berserk is different from any other art or design studio, in that it straddles the boundary between the two. Though each commission is custom, a similar language may run through their body of work, and no two-art works are the same. That’s because it's going to be someone else’s story. “Essentially I am telling somebody else's tale through my understanding of life’, says Priyanka.
“It could be as simple as a brief, ‘I just want to create an artwork for my space, which charts the geographies that we as a family have lived in’.
So I as a story teller am just going to tell that tale as I understand life. And the references could come from anywhere. It could come from architecture, it could come from history, it could come from nature or however, or wherever!”
Studying Architecture, Seeking New Horizons
WPriyanka studied at APID, in Vallabh Vidyanagar, a small town between Ahmedabad and Baroda. “I cannot emphasize enough, back in the day the intake was also filtered to a few 14 seats in the state. People did not come to do architecture to not practice or who did not have an inclination towards it.”
“It's a very intensive course. We do math, physics, geography, science, landscape, history, heritage, materials, colours, philosophy, poetry, movies, anything and everything that makes us a civilization. We do it all. And we do it over and over and over and over again for 10 semesters, five bloody years. Like, there is no escape!”
“In my second year, I think I knew that I'm never going to practice. I also realised that I'm a very instant gratification kind of a person. If I've thought of something, I want to see it come to life then and there. Most artists may have done a style for 30 years years of their life - I cannot. I need to reinvent. I need to incorporate. I need to move around and change. The the only constant that my body of work has, is change.”
Seeds of childhood embedded in today
W“I come from a Gujarati Brahmin Orthodox family. What is interesting is that both my parents have four siblings on one side and five siblings on the other side. I think something changed in their lives, as at a time, they moved out from the joint family and started living independently. Being the youngest siblings, both still carried with them traditions from the family.”
“There's always been a sitar in the house. More as a decor piece, though. Since the time we have known our parents, my mom's never picked up a sitar. We never questioned why is there a sitar. So there have been things dormant for such a long time and along comes one child who says I'll be a mix of everything. Let's see where it takes us!”
Parental plan
W“My brother's a doctor. Our parents placed me in a lovely pharmacy school because I had gotten good grades. My father this plan that: ‘we'll build a hospital, the son will become a doctor and the daughter will become a pharmacist.’ They come from a place where doctors and engineers was the thing. Each will eventually marry, have two kids, fantastic life, parents will retire, that’s the dream. This is the future that they want to provide for their kids.”
“With my older brother, everything happened by the book, A good guy who would not defy, not challenge and who would conform. He's phenomenal the way he is, but I think even as a child, I felt he has already done it, but there's no fun in it.”
“Partly I feel that because he turned out to be the way he did, I could do whatever the hell I could. If I'm denied anything, or told ‘no’, I would do it first, just to understand why. Why not try something else? And that means, growing up, I was rebel without a cause - as simple as that.”
My storytelling devices
W“I live and breathe colours! People say that ‘oh, life is black’ and I was like, ‘my ass - not’. We are visual beings. For me, specific colours or shades will take me to back to - well, I can travel through it, I can smell colours.
What the five senses do for you, colour alone does it all for me.”
“And I think my strength would be lines. To date, if a new person is hired in the studio, for a month you only have to practice lines.
What you can do with a line you cannot with anything else - everything is made up of lines at the end of the day. And Dots - everything is dots and lines. It's how a line starts, how you end it, and modulate the intensity of the line.”
“So I think lines and colours is what what House of Beserk is all about. That sort of the expression is at core what we are. If you just put these two tools together, and start dissecting a work, you'll start to see that.”
Getting past creative blocks
“Creative blocks do happen. I also live and work out the same place. I travel on work, and if asked to take another flight for leisure, I feel I would rather be in my studio cooped up in that hole with my dog, with one or two negronis! I don’t care!”
“So one interesting thing about the way I've built the practice is that we have multiple projects on at the same time. So if I'm struggling with one, I'm going to move on to another one. For me the switch on and switch off has made it easier to compartmentalize things.”
“And since I’ve started diving, I've made sure that every four months, I dive. Whatever I have got to resolve, I hold it for four months. Until I go underwater that first time, and then - just like that - it unravels itself in all its mysteries. Working backwards helps. That's one coping mechanism that we have.” “Also through the kind of materials that we work with, the kind of projects, and the scale at which we work each comes with its own pros and cons, and baggage and fun. So you have to make sure how to equalize and work within those constraints so that you not overwhelmed.”
The discipline of organization and managing multiplicity
“What I have seen when we have worked very closely with architects over the last couple of years, is that they are phenomenally disciplined, but they don't have a sense of time. My greatest asset - is time - in terms of manoeuvring deadlines to production with teams. It has also made me a control freak, which I think architects are not because they have to work with such a huge amount of people and other teams.
“In my practice, I work solo. One person controlling something as simple as the smallest delivery. It’s not being handled by an assistant, but me directly. For as long as you are in control, you know the time that you have. You know you have 24 hours. You know what you can do in that time, how much can you do and, how to do it.”
“Also, I write. Something as simple as groceries to be collected. Or when I work out everyday, even that is going to go in the diary because I know that’s where my one hour is going. I don’t take it for granted. If I have to meditate, I will still make sure that I'll put it in the diary, even though it is a practice. Otherwise it's just so tight.”
Advice for someone starting out
“You have to be unhinged! Seriously, at the same time, be open to critique and know the boundaries. You need to know that criticism can be used to put you down, but also criticism can up-lift you. Use it to unravel things within you that you never knew.”
“Coming from that architecture training, where our work is displayed in a public space. We were the mercy of the public, not just with our seniors and juniors at work, but anybody and everybody who was walking the premise that time, we were the mercy of the people.”
“You learn to be centered, and you also have to be open to other’s views.” You have to be able to talk about your work, and accept any feedback that's coming. Eventually with experience, you will know who to ask and whom not to. So now if the third person just comes in, and comments on my work, I will put that person in place! So, it will come with with time, to do it with grace!”
Part two here :
@HouseofBeserk on the ever-changing responsibility of art in a public realm
