The Phoenix Circle, founded by Kulsum Shadab Wahab in 2025, returns to Milan Fashion Week this year with PASSPORT, a collaboration between Ara Lumiere and contemporary artist Raghava KK. Presented through an intimate art exhibition and dinner at Gallery Gaburro, the project brings together fashion, art and the experiences of women who have survived acid attacks and burns.
At its centre is a question of identity: who gets to define how a person is seen? PASSPORT begins with the supposedly objective image of a passport photograph, which Raghava transforms through digital and physical interventions before the women themselves paint over the versions they choose. The result gives the image three authors: the official photograph, the artist and, finally, the person portrayed. As Wahab puts it, the project is concerned with the point at which “a photograph no longer has the final say.”
Kulsum Shadab Wahab (KW): Milan Fashion Week has always been an important platform for Ara Lumiere, but this time I wanted to bring something deeper than a collection.
Over the years, the women’s journey has moved from survival to rehabilitation, livelihood and creativity. This project felt like the natural next chapter, where fashion meets art, identity and culture.
Milan gives us an international stage, but I also wanted the evening to carry a very strong sense of India. That is where The Leela became such an important part of the story. Through their hospitality, food and cultural sensibility, we are bringing a piece of India into Milan and creating an evening that feels immersive rather than simply presentational.
For me, it is about taking the women’s stories into a global cultural space without losing where we come from.
KW: What makes it meaningful is that it comes from a very real journey.
I have seen these women through surgeries, pain, counselling, recovery and the slow process of rebuilding confidence. This project is not about revisiting what happened to them. It is about what came after.
Art gave them another language.
Instead of asking the world to look at their scars, we are asking the world to look at what they create, what they imagine and who they choose to become.
That shift, from being seen through trauma to being seen through authorship, is what makes this project so personal to me.
KW: It came together very organically.
Raghava and I have known each other for years, and there has always been a natural exchange of ideas between us. I knew that if we were going to move into this space, I needed someone who understood identity beyond appearance and who would never treat the women as subjects.
What I loved about Raghava’s approach was that he did not come in to “fix” anything. He came in to create with them.
The women became part of the process, not simply the inspiration for it. And that distinction was very important to me.
The collaboration between Raghava, the women, Ara Lumiere and The Leela has allowed this to become something much larger than an art project. It has become a cultural conversation.
KW: My vision was very simple: I wanted the women to be seen beyond the worst thing that happened to them.
For many years, our work has been about rebuilding lives in a very holistic way. We support surgeries, counselling, rehabilitation, education, livelihood and independence. But eventually, healing also becomes about identity.
The women were not passive participants in this project. Their hands, instincts, emotions and choices are present in the work. They contributed creatively and personally to what you see.
That was essential to me because I did not want to create art about them. I wanted to create a platform where they could participate in creating the art themselves.
And by bringing that work to Milan, surrounded by Indian hospitality and culture through The Leela, we are allowing the whole story to travel with them.
KW: I hope it changes the way people look at a survivor.
I want people to stop seeing only what happened to her and start seeing what she can create, contribute and become.
If someone walks away from this evening remembering the work before remembering the trauma, then we have already changed the conversation.
And I hope this project also shows that Indian creativity, craftsmanship, hospitality and social impact can sit confidently on a global stage together.
For me, the greatest impact would be for these women to be remembered not because of what they survived, but because of what they created.
That is the journey I want the world to see.