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Random Specific Musings from the Ramayana

Meena Kadri — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 21:59:58 +0000

Illustrator Sanjay Patel has been getting a fair amount of cyber-attention of late. Earlier this year saw the release of his acclaimed book Ramayana: Divine Loophole – which graphically recounts the legendary Hindu epic.

Random factoid: Sanjay spent his formative years in a motel run by his Indian-born parents in San Bernadino, off Route 66. Specific factoid: These days he works as an animator at Pixar Studios. I hit Sanjay up to provide some further randomly specific insights from his latest book. He started out by highlighting that the Ramayana is, in fact, all about random meetings and chance encounters surrounding specific quests and heroic pursuits.
“In the spread called Family Tree I wanted to capture that randomness as Rama is introduced to the monkey and bear tribes. I was keen for it to look like abstract jungle wallpaper. The imagery owes a lot to inspiration from the late modernist Charley Harper.”

“Later on in the next spread, Search for Sita, the bears and monkeys are on the hunt for a specific person. That person of course is the princess Sita. Rama’s mission to find Sita brings order and focus to the chaos of the jungle.”

In the quest for Sita, Rama gets help from the likes of Hanuman and other cooperative characters while surmounting challenges from a slew of villainous types. Sanjay’s version leaps off the page in vivid drama and whimsical charm. Check out his interview with the good folks over at Grain Edit and Sanjay’s own site Ghee Happy. If you’re keen to get your hands on a copy of one of his covetable volumes – you can find them in the jungles of Amazon.

Backstory: My email exchange with Sanjay began with a humble note from my end letting him know that stationery had been misspelt on his website as stationary. This post has been brought to you by the letter E.

[All images by Sanjay Patel – in case you haven't been paying attention]

Reality Flies in Fresh Directions

Meena Kadri — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 08:56:58 +0000

iButterfly is a quirky example of the implementation of Augmented Reality, in which Japanese users chase butterflies with their iPhones.

For those of you still getting up to speed with the concept, Augmented Reality is the mash-up of digital imagery and our physical environment which encourages new forms of interactivity. If you want a less whimsical and more educational example – check out the Museum of London’s Streetmuseum app.

From functional to frivolous, Augmented Reality puts a new spin on Picasso’s quip that “everything you imagine is real.”

Same, Same but Different

Meena Kadri — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 01:58:14 +0000

During my last trip to India I was intrigued by the social norms, occupational cues and semi-uniformity surrounding the ear-cleaning profession.

Kaan-saaf wallas often don red head-gear and subtly sport a fresh cue-tip alongside other professional apparatus. This alerts folks to their services without the need for brash announcements of their humble and sensitive trade. More images.

Gotta love those who’s work revolves around enhancing our ability to listen.

Indo-Italian Moves

Meena Kadri — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 09:31:25 +0000

Down here in the depths of winter it was heartening to receive pictures of an exhibition of my photography from summer in Italy. DES – An IndusInk Event: Celebrating a Tryst with the Contemporary was held at the Politecnico di Milano last month. Alongside my images Indian snacks were served, bhangra beats spun and folk dance unfurled. The event was devised by Avnish Mehta who is currently engaged in postgraduate study at PdM – designing products, services and systems… and the occasional cultural soirée.

Would’ve loved to have dropped by to catch these guys in action:

All Images: Florian Yzeiraj
Co-curator: Marco Spadafora

Street-wise: Pedal Powered Retail

Meena Kadri — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 04:24:00 +0000

I’ve been following the cycle-centric developments between the Department of Counter Culture and RMIT University’s School of Industrial and Interior Design in Melbourne with some interest. Together they’ve been exploring changes of retail exchange in the public space and challenges facing the fixed-store trading paradigm. (Image: Raphael Kilpatrick)

In pursuit of socially engaged endeavours they teamed up with The Social Studio – a local, community-facing fashion and textiles training initiative. Recycled and excess manufacturing materials are gathered from local industry and re-configured into original clothing with the style & skills of the young refugee community at the Social Studio. (Images: The Social Studio + Nicole Reed for The Vine)

(Images: No Fixed Address on Flickr + TSS Pedal Powered Pop-up by Raphael Kilpatrick)

In an approach that’s been cross-disciplinary, collaborative and focused on customisation – students devised twenty pedal-powered-retail concepts. From these they developed two transformable bicycle kiosks which used sliding and folding mechanisms respectively. The operational mobile enterprises were launched as The Social Studio | No Fixed Address at this month’s spirited State of Design festival. (And speaking of mobile – the festival came with it’s very own iPhone app.)

Check out the project video to hear more on the design process.

Archival Adventures

Meena Kadri — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 04:12:59 +0000

Artist Unknown, Mission School, circa 1849 Image Source

A good friend recently showed me an illustrative version of the Lord’s Prayer in Maori.
I noted that it was credited to the National Library here in Wellington so headed over to see what related items were in their online archive. I came across the piece above – promoting an early mission school.

Thomas Kendall, Nuku Tawiti, 1824 Image Source

Alongside Maori adoption of Christianity, the archive also points to colonial attempts to understand local spiritual belief. Early missionary Thomas Kendall made this sketch of Maori gods – which he observed on carvings in 1824.

K.P.M. South Pacific Line, 1939 Image Source

Carvings feature elsewhere on the site – here on the cover of a promotion for a passenger ship run by major Dutch company, Koninklijke Paketvaart-Maatschappij. Framing Mount Cook they gave an exotic spin on the antipodean landscape.

NZ Railways, Auckland to Rotorua – the Thermal Route, circa 1954 Image Source

Switching from sea-faring to land transport, the Railways advertised its once popular route to my home town of Rotorua from Auckland. Rotorua drew tourists with its thermal activity, thriving Maori culture and welcoming hosts. The advertisement features a tiki alongside the train and Maori carving motifs.

Horatio Robely, Arms of Dr TM Hocken, circa 1900 Image Source

The tiki and Maori motifs were used again in this artist’s rendition of the initials of Dr Thomas Moralnd Hocken, who funnily enough headed to New Zealand to escape British winters. I can’t imagine he found much respite in Dunedin. A doctor, avid collector and historian – he donated his sizeable stash of books, maps, manuscripts and ephemera to the citizens of Dunedin in 1910 in the form of the Hocken Library.

Charles Hill & Sons Ltd, Models 27-49, 1897 Image Source

Fittingly, it was the good folk at the Hocken Library who had pointed out the Maori Lord’s Prayer to my friend – which I mentioned in opening as prompting my foray into the National Library Collection in the first place. Back home in Wellington I’ve been having a great time trawling the library archive discovering a wealth of local visual history. Hats off to the National Library – for old times sake:

Christmas Card, Kia Ora. For Old Times Sake, circa 1890-1910 Image source

Related posts:
A Wind-Swept Walk of Words

Lo-fi Meets Hi-fi at the Corner of Send & Receive

Meena Kadri — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 01:29:58 +0000

A selection of creative endeavors featuring SMS, social media and spam provide artful commentary on digital communication.

SMS Stitching – embroidered text messages track ebb and flow of modern romance.

Wildlife-Social Media Mash-up – blasé bird tweets on life in New York.

Spam One Liners – hand-lettered renderings inspired by junk mail subject lines.

Highlighting aspects of immediacy, attention and privacy – all three artists share a tendency to save what others may delete.

Creative Plot to Blow Up Bombay

Meena Kadri — Tue, 25 May 2010 11:13:53 +0000

It was great to be part of the plan hatched by Akshay Mahajan & Kapil Das of the BlindBoys photography collective to expose the streets of Mumbai to expressive perspectives over the weekend. BlowUp Bombay was one part dynamic duo, one part global photographic talent and three parts street cred. It brought together image hunters who’s work was publicly showcased on the back of a number of earlier global BlowUp plots launched from Bangalore to Paris. (Illustration by Ronald Searle)

Image and display by Puneet Rakheja .

Twenty odd photographers were selected for the Mumbai event with locals invited to come along on the day and add their own work. The format was the humble A3 digital copy, the space sprawled across a few derelict blocks of Bandra and the audience ranged from residents to street sellers, photography fans to roadside romeos. Local children joined in to help put up the images and amusingly took on self appointed roles in protecting the displays.

Delhi BlowUp, 2009 (Photo by Kapil Das)

“As any artist will attest, street art is best made when unpredictable, subversive and not entirely legal… The Blowup events, where an ad-hoc public photo gallery is created using building walls and shop fronts as hanging space, have slowly accrued a devoted following.” – Mumbai Boss

Amongst the core group of exhibitors were prominent names like Bharat Sikka who lives between Europe and India and has shot for Vogue, Marie Claire, Wallpaper and the New Yorker. Adrian Fisk’s work has appeared in National Geographic, Vanity Fair, Paris Match and the Economist and I’m a particular fan of his documentation of the Indian Hair Trade (above: top). Central insurgent Kapil Das was joined by his partner in crime Akshay Mahanjan who’s images (above: bottom) have featured in Wired, Le Monde and the Wall Street Journal.

And then there was little old me who’s shots have appeared in the Guardian, CNN + Design Observer and who managed to be part of the whole conspiracy from way down here in New Zealand. Included in my submission was the series Jewelled for Life which was mainly taken amongst the desert tribes of Kutch where it’s said that tattoos are a permanent kind of jewellery that one takes to one’s death. Here’s a selection:

Lower image by Puneet Rakheja. Check out more of his coverage of the event.

“Life is on display on the street — people walk, sit, stand, sleep, drive, drink, eat, piss, talk, mingle, fight, and love. The street is where groups collide and where people live and die and where all of society mixes with trash, smog, sewage, and the pulsating sounds of traffic. We put together a bunch of our pictures there to bring them to you – where you’re standing, on the street.” – Blindboys

Illuminating Urban Imperfections

Meena Kadri — Wed, 12 May 2010 06:21:15 +0000

Berlin-based artist, Jan Vormann, diverts our architectural attention with his global Dispatchwork series. While shining a light on urban histories he celebrates the spirit of repair through his vibrantly incongruous restorations.

Still in his 20s, his artwork has taken him from cities as varied as Tel Aviv and New York (both above) to countries as diverse as Ecuador and Serbia with sponsors including the Amsterdam Centre for Architecture. Some works seek to merely mend weathered decay while others fill scars left by war, such as in Berlin’s Mitte neighbourhood.

Lego has produced more than 400 billion units since the 1930’s, deriving its name from the Danish phrase to “play well.” Relevantly Jan often employs an inclusive approach – enlisting the help of passers-by and even encouraging others to take up his approach and send him photos of their creations from across the globe. Other times he works alone though admits that this can be demanding as in the case at a South American heritage church where he had to dodge thugs, nuns and security officers.

Jan’s streetscape interruptions playfully direct us to spaces-between, hidden-histories and untold-tales. And fittingly he uses a medium that we associate with unhindered childhood imaginings with which to fill the gaps.

Veiled Paradox

Meena Kadri — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 09:00:29 +0000

New York-based photographer Kate Orne has focused her lens on Pakitsani prostitution over a number of years in an effort to expose the denial, modesty, pretense and cultural oppression which envelope it.

Young women from rural villages and refugee camps are sold to the brothels by human-traffickers, while others are born into the trade.

Prostitution is forbidden under Islamic law, but with the increasing influence of extremist groups, the women risk severe punishment under Sharia Law through beheadings and stoning to death.

The laws – both secular and sacred – seem to disregard the context in which women
have entered the profession while paying negligible attention to the men who engage
their services.

The women practice modesty according to Islam. For a woman not to cover her chest… is considered daring – even among prostitutes.

Proceeds from Orne’s print sales from the series May You Never Be Uncovered:
The Victims of Pakistan’s Sex Trade support education of the children of Pakistani prostitutes via the Sheed Foundation – “a small but highly efficient community-based organization addressing the social problems faced in particular by the local female sex workers and their children who suffer from oppression, poverty, illiteracy and abuse.”

Orne highlights cultural complexity through her portraits and studies which are both intimate yet modest. Her images don’t provide us with answers but rather confront us to question deeper the paradoxes at play surrounding prostitution. And I’d hasten to add that they are not limited to Pakistan nor Islam.