Annapurna Garimella is an art historian and designer whose work explores the intersections of architecture, craft, and vernacular visual cultures in South Asia. Her research spans late medieval Indic architecture and the histories and practices of visual and built environments in India since Independence.
She is the Managing Trustee of the Art, Resources and Teaching Trust (ARTS), which houses a research library and supports independent scholarship and pedagogy. She also leads Jackfruit Research and Design, an interdisciplinary studio known for its distinctive portfolio of curatorial, design, and research projects. Recent curations include Mutable: Ceramic and Clay Art in India Since 1947 (Piramal Museum of Art, 2017) and The Past Has a Home in the Future: Dhoomimal Gallery and Connaught Place (New Delhi, 2024). Garimella also designed and oversaw the construction of the MV Ganga Vilas, the world’s longest river cruise, inaugurated in 2022.
In 2023, she developed and taught A History of Indian Craft: 1850s to the Present, a widely subscribed online course for MAP Academy that brought a global historical lens to Indian craft practices, enrolling over 3,000 participants.
Her published works include The Contemporary Hindu Temple: Fragments for a History and The Long Arc of South Asian Art: A Reader in Honor of Vidya Dehejia. Forthcoming titles include Designing India: 1947 to the Present, A Face on a Face: South Asian Masks in the Vaidya Collection, Digesting the Past: The Discourse of Sacralized Architectural Renovation in Southern India (14th–17th Centuries), and Propositions for Art Worlds.