Earlier this month I spent time in Delhi with my old pal Arti Sandhu, putting up or exhibition Overlap at the Mocha Arthouse. Arti and I have been intersecting across the globe for a decade now – in New Zealand, India, Hong Kong and the US. Sharing a fondness for hand-rendered, vernacular artforms, we conceived the show around our varied perspectives of Indianess – touching on the desi and diasporic, the traditional and typographic alongside language and locality.
My own work included two series which I designed and had executed by sign-writers in Ahmedabad and exhibited previously at the Glasgow School of Art. The English of India series came from noting that visitors to India are so often surprised by the amount of English one encounters – on the street, peppered through films and even in remote villages. I aimed to capture the localisation of the global spread of English through the flair of local sign-writing.
The second series, Bollywood Soul – A Vernacular Walk of Fame playfully created a set which displays divas and heralds heros of national cinema, employing local portraiture and typographic styles commonly used to decorate rickshaws. I collaborated with a local legend who earns his living painting rickshaw mudflaps from his roadside ’studio’ – who committed his brush to rubber shoe-soles for the project.
Arti grew up in an Army family which meant she covered a lot of ground in India from a young age. A love of drawing and customising her barbie to look more Indian led her study fashion at NIFT in Delhi and later in the UK. Since then she has lectured globally and is currently an assistant professor of Fashion Design in Chicago. Her artworks explore identity and migration and provide insightful perspectives on the eccentricities of the modern and mundane in India and abroad.
On annual visits home to India Arti began to notice the idiosyncratic qualities of everyday life which she had previously taken in her stride. She drew on these observations to create the ‘A’ is for Akshar series in which she re-visits her motherland and language while providing a visual commentary on India through the lens of a migrant.
Exploring cultural baggage and excess baggage, Arti’s Mahila Moments series is inspired by Madhubani folk art. Here she delves into the dilemmas of modern day India, fashion and migration with a love for line, pattern and repetition. Reminiscent of Ganjifa playing cards, the series crosses borders of locality and globalisation in an interplay of what Indian womanhood has come to mean at home and abroad.
Included in the exhibition was a large format poster by New Zealand-based graphic designer and typographer Anton Hart. A few years back he landed up in Bombay on a work sabbatical. Like many before him and many to come, he was smitten. But the touristy tabernacles of Agra and Rajasthan were not what caught his eye. Instead he was enraptured by the truck painters of Bombay and farther afield. His Horn Please typeface and ornaments are a tribute to their flamboyant creativity.
The show Overlap: Intersections of Desi and Diasporic is hosted by the good folk at Box Design & Research and will be up at Delhi’s Mocha Arthouse, DLF Promenade, Vasant Kunj through February, 2010. And check out the type animation for the Arthouse by my former student and flash-master Abishek Ghate.
Related posts:
Viva Vernacular
Indian Street Graphics (Flickr)
My partner in crime from Hong Kong days, Oriana Reich, has curated an exhibition Cultural Confectionery for the week long Detour festival. New York-raised Oriana is a creative visionary who works globally and is currently back in Hong Kong dishing up a wealth of delectable treats from graphic design to culinary arts. Her imminent show brings together such passions and exemplifies her multidisciplinary approach.
“Cultural Confectionery aims to convey the fundamental notion that food is a cultural expression. Through exploring the relationship of Chinese confectionery to identity and culture, our exhibit will include a classification of Chinese confectionery, highlighting types local to Hong Kong and those that are part of a confectionery diaspora. The exhibition is a record of sweet memories: the stories, memories and traditions that surround our relationship with sweets. A series of photographs by Grischa Rüschendorf will explore local bakery and cha chaan teng culture, sharing a vital part of Hong Kong’s urban landscape.”
Acknowledging the reliance of our food experiences on smell, Oriana has indulged in a spot of olfactory alchemy to enhance the sensory and nostalgic qualities of the exhibition. She sought the input of San Francisco-based scent sorceress, Julie Elliot who dispatched a selection of nine scents for Oriana to blend for the show.
Get it while it’s fresh – between November 27 and December 9, 2009.
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Commanding commuter attention in New Zealand’s capital city is the Go Wellington Graffiti Bus that was launched earlier this year as part of the vibrant Cuba Street Carnival. While graffiti is often viewed through the lens of vandalism, its defenders claim that it creates a sense of belonging and expertise while providing a vehicle for publicly expressing personal, social and political viewpoints.
A chance meeting in a Wellington alley-way brought together the Goethe Institute and Auckland-based aerosol artists Cut Collective. This evolved into a collaboration with German collective Via Grafik resulting in an exhibition and panel discussions at Wellington’s New Dowse gallery and a live event at the carnival during which the bus was given its street-wise makeover.
By showcasing planned, commissioned and intricate works, exhibited urban artforms are placed on a higher plane than vandalism but reference to public space still seems relevant. Carnival organiser Chris Morely-Hall supported the idea that street art be hailed both in and outside the gallery context. Last year’s Street Art show at London’s Tate Modern similarly acknowledged a need to present works by urban artists outdoors rather than merely confine them to gallery interiors.
With urban surfaces becoming increasingly corporatised the bus also raises issues around the dynamics of disruption and motivations for street art.
“We are bound by our own decision-making framework that is based on pretty robust ethical values. We are business owners and ratepayers, so we are respectful of others in that position. By the same token, being contributing members of society in that way, we also feel we have some right of reply within a public space dominated by advertising imagery and messages.”
– Cut Collective member Ross Liew (aka Trust Me) Source: Unlimited
Go Wellington were amazingly cooperative in meeting my request to pull the bus out of circulation so that I could shoot it. While waiting at the expansive Kilbirnie bus depot I came across a driver who had been at the wheel of the bus on a number of occasions. He mentioned that it certainly gets a lot of attention on the street – good, bad and bewildered. Wherever I’ve come across it I’ve noted that while many people smile as they view this creative contrast to the usual corporate bus advertising, others frown at the irreverent path its cuts through Wellington streets. If a key role of art is to pose questions the
Graffiti Bus certainly qualifies – as it drives debate and salutes skills through the city’s main arteries.
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Melbourne Karachi Tram Project [external]
Note: more imagery follows in the Comments Section.
Respect to all mentioned in the article plus Lisa Mönchmeyer from the Goethe Institute, Flox + Component of Cut Collective, Go Wellington’s Siobhan O’Donovan + Darek Koper and my main man and personal bus driver – Alan.
Sitting firmly at my favoured intersection of communication, culture & creativity are two exemplary projects by UK-based designer/animator/mutlimedia artist: Alan Warburton. Both explore food as an illustrative and participatory medium for enhancing dialogue.
The first was his Cutting the Melon/Cortando el Melon project in Venezuela. The concept was inspired by a conversation with a local friend on politics – who chose to illustrate his point by cutting a melon. The resulting project involved four pairs of participants from the Universidad Central de Venezuela who were asked to cut a melon to depict and discuss aspects of Venezuela’s political situation. Photography & video from the event were later exhibited – prompting viewers to reflect on their own narratives of the political context.
The second project, Fruits of Conversation, was held in the British city of Cambridge. It took the form of a community focused initiative where participants sliced, severed and sculpted locally grown apples to explore topics which they felt define their city. Issues raised covered traffic congestion, cultural integration, planning and development.
“Using apples is very much a leveller. It slows down discussions and makes people a lot more thoughtful and less combative, so when they need to make a point it facilitates a kind of levelled discussion. The first cut is always the hardest. They don’t want to cut the apple because they have to make an assertion. But once they’ve done that they throw caution to the wind.” – Alan Warburton, via the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts
Providing fabulous encouragement for playing with one’s food…
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Cultural Confectionery
Aligning himself with Buckminster Fuller’s notion of a comprehensivist, Carnegie
Mellon industrial design student Nadeem Haidary is one to watch. His provocative
forays into interaction design, anthropology and information visualization command
fresh perspectives.
In his Food of Art exhibition in Pittsburgh he analyses the nutritional content of twelve celebrated still life artworks including pieces by Van Gogh and Cezanne. He points to the data’s indication of the artists’ respective economic means and I’m also interested in the underlying implications encompassing taste, value and the consumption of art.
A delight for label checkers and talent hunters.
From top to bottom:
Still Life with Fruit, Vegetables and Dead Game, Frans Snyders, c.1635-1637
Still Life with Onions and Drawing Board, Vincent van Gogh, 1889
Still Life with Basket of Apples, Paul Cezanne (French), 1890-1894
Still Life with Fruit, Hermenegildo Bustos, 1874
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Fruitful Pursuits
Cultural Confectionery
Everyone carries baggage and the current exhibition at Wellington’s Bowen Galleries examines the weight borne by those affected by learning difficulties yet acts a testament to their resilience. Visitors to the gallery have been moved to tears – not in the least, I feel, at being confronted with the reflection by which art mirrors society (and its failings) so glaringly back at us.
Textile artist Rosie White and her daughter Elisabeth (who is studying Spatial Design at Massey’s College of Creative Arts) pooled talents and concepts to chart experience with the New Zealand school system of their family which has 3 dyslexic members, including Elisabeth herself. Quotes from students, parents, teachers and principals are embroidered on school bags highlighting injustice and humiliation – in a layering of text and textile which was hailed by one visitor as “elegant yet pushing boundaries”.
“Why should how well you read and write be the catalyst of how intelligent you are?” asks Elisabeth who is finding her tertiary environment much more nuturing of her talents than the school sysem ever was. Given that the majority of dyslexics are of above average intelligence, one can only imagine how frustrating some scenarios must have been.
One bag in the exhibition recalls “She said try harder so I pushed hard with my pencil and got a detention – blow trying harder.”
Rising above it all, the main banner proclaims: My gift of dyslexia is my treasure. It no longer holds me back; it inspires me.
Rosie, as a parent, was constantly disheartened during the 23 years her children were in the school system. She embroidered some of the exhibition’s phrases upside down so as not to have to revisit the emotions they stirred up. However she is far from bitter and sees a key role of the exhibition as celebrating the unique insight and perception of dyslexic children. By telling challeging stories in a compelling format, Rosie and Elisabeth have provided us with poignant commentary. Rosie assuringly adds that “the good thing about acknowledging the bags one carries is that you can choose to put them down.”
High praise to Bowen Galleries for hosting this noteworthy exhibition and to the Dyslexia Foundation of New Zealand for their sponsorship.
