Art tales

The making of space without the romance of art is just a distressing idea. After all, the food for our souls rests in the succor provided by friends, family, the comfort of doing well in what we do, being  in good health- but also in engagement with art, culture and music.
As designers of space, we are presented the opportunity to engage with this realm every day- and yet many of us shy away from it, or have a very tentative unconvincing affair with it, or just have an overtly labored cerebral manner of dealing with it, and rather so often also, reject it, in the belief that we do not know enough.

A lightness in the step, and a song in the heart is a good way to enjoy this world.

In the design studio (where two sets of music play in different spaces, from early morning to late evening), this engagement with art is often a simple flirtatious liaison, or a deeply committed love affair. The joy of being in either, is often lesser than the joy that is transmitted to a larger group of humanity who later become part of these spaces- much as they smile and sigh, as they are wont to, when seeing someone in love.

Over time this embedded desire has found many manifestations in our projects, some in which we have worked with young and established artists, in others with unknown artists and yet in some where we have tried to wear the garb of the artist.

Some selected vignettes:

In a park in a small town in Maharashtra, children from neighbouring schools come every year to paint the canvas walls provided to them.

In the same town, an anonymous painter of hoardings is invited to enliven the walls of various structures of an amusement park with tales of Bollywood.

In a new housing landscape, Vyom Mehta, is working to create a 20 feet high proud animal that stands at a key location in the garden. Pin wheels will be embedded in the horse- the wind that rushes through the narrow spaces of the building will make this an aspiring flying or an extremely dizzy animal.

In the same landscape on some hidden walls, that are planted amidst tall grasses, he will paint larger than life mischievous frogmen.

In another part of the same development, the office is designing a dinosaur bridge for children to run on, and slide and swing from.

In the entrance of a  wonderful home that looks over wild landscape, Anuj Poddar from Baroda installs  a man of glass beads that swings every so lightly and floats in heavenly ways. Anuj in conversation often refers it to as a tribute to the ravines around the city (where the house is located) that he would go as a student and feel the wind sway his body.

In the same home, in a raised public space that commands infinite views, Walter D’souza from Ahmedabad does a careful and gentle installation in copper that hangs above the dining space. He rarely talks about it, but somehow the seminal nature of the landscape, the idea of creation, the DNA like strand, with the allusion to the fruits and leaves linked to man’s creation seem interlinked.

In yet another project  the well known architect and interior designer Samira Rathod dons the garb of the artist , and designs the interiors and then paints a canvas that alludes to the life in that space.

In a soon to be completed showroom, that narrates the historical relation of a city with its maritime trade, Vyom Mehta will install a huge squid, hanging from the roof, and he talks about the “fear of the unknown in the sea”.

In a large wedding venue, just at the point where the guests will enter the main space a series of installations, seem to collapse the many emotions of people watching guests, the flurry of human emotions etched on glass prayer wheels, and a light that narrates the multicultural nature of our society.

In a soon to be completed landscape in an office building in a large city, the studio designs the landscape and as part of it, a giant lamp over three floors and hopes that it can stand distinctively as a beacon in faceless urbanity.

In a lecture many years back at an art museum in Mumbai, I managed to raise a few eye brows when I said that art needs to be rescued from the museums and put out where we can all enjoy it daily; infact if I remember correctly the host was rather annoyed with me. I did not for a moment mean to suggest that museums are the haven of a selected few  who zealously guard the space, ( which unfortunately they do), nor suggest that we do not need spaces that are repositories for serious viewing and collection of art- just that we should democratize the idea- a lot!!!
-Aniket Bhagwat