CURATORS

AJEY DALVI

(Artist) Teacher,Dalvi’s Art Institute, Kolhapur

ROLE OF CONTEMPORARY ‘INDIAN’ DESIGNERS

We can see the pattern of deep lines of the western imperialism entrenched on our country and culture, on every sphere of our life. Scientists are even studying the effects of European influence on the nature by minutely monitoring the paintings done by indian master painters from last two centuries.

British, Portuguese and French colonisers employed their architecture, construction techniques while building their colonies here. Architects from Europe lead the effort but the actual construction was done using locally available materials and local artisans.

Japan, when conquered Chinese territory consciously forced its style and organization of architecture and design through military might and in turn forced an outside nationalism.

Even the gardens we see around, both old and new, try to replicate the vast open open lawned gardens of Europe where getting sun’s heat is the requirement. In fact we in the subcontinent require shade because of the harsh and constant sun.

We can boast of rich and tasty food in indian tradition but our cuisine is unwittingly labeled as inferior by us and American and European food with difficult names or even a roadside Chinese food stall with fake dragon symbols are overpowering the food culture.

Recently some of our friends were shown all kinds of fanciful, beautiful and well crafted Chinese toys at a Dubai mall. When asked for more durable items they were shown Indian toys. When our friends searched for the same toys on return to India, to their surprise they could not find those here. This is an eye-opening experience.

Today our society, at least majority of men are totally engulfed by the western style of clothing to such an extent that it is becoming difficult day by day to even remember or to perceive what type of clothes were used by our ancestors. Everything Vernacular and particularly clothing is ridiculed as out-dated and out fashioned. Traditional clothes are reduced to caricatured clothing for fancy dress parades. A lungi from south, Dhoti and the Muslim attire deserve Praise for preserving the tradition.

Recently I saw a house in Akluj in Solpur district, a dry, very hot and arid region. It was fashioned after some European prototype that is designed for heavy snow fall. It looked so out of place, aesthetically hollow and ironically laughable because it was not responding to the surrounding atmosphere. It looked like a man wearing reindeer fur attire complete with a leather cap and boots roaming around in a desert.

In India fine arts especially modern are influenced by the British trough both Bengal and Bombay schools. The Craft was taught through not just observation and copying of Greco-roman classical sculptures but also through references to the aesthetical philosophies of kant, Aristotle and Plato. Direct influence of both the thought process and the visual aspects of the European art examples and the teachers who propagated it, is understandable but still Indian artists passing out of the two schools are seen rejecting the tendency of replication of the classical conventions of Greco-roman human form with all its attributes of skin tones, muscle structures and proportions. Instead they were representing the reality of the Indian subcontinent. And regrettably we do see those same conventions of anglicised human from today in contemporary market driven art.

We even see the concept of so called beauty in the casting of actors in the films, a medium that reache the collective consciousness of the masses. Art can certainly shape the aesthetic sensibilities of the society about a certain personality but such influence shaping an individual passing through the transition of childhood to adolescence can cause the fall of that brown to dark tan skinned Indian generation to such low levels where the external makeup of mobiles, gadgets, clothing become not just necessity but obsession.

Our childhood was spent in the mud plastered brick and stone homes of our ancestors, the calm of those deep shadowed spaces was so potent as compared to the hollow boxes of concrete and glass and all the glossy materials.

Indian people have long been dependent on everything ‘imported’ because of long foreign rule or political, educational or cultural pressures but now everything ‘Indian’ is making its mark. Now is the time to take special care to make everything look ‘Indian’.

Things we use every day, clothing, the spaces and places we use, if these are made and shaped with what is rooted in the place, what is within that environment then that will impart the continuum between the environment and us. We should experience and exploit this connection. Art, literature and culture can shape the societal needs but the nuances of that should be sensitively moulded by us, the designers. Which helps us to give Indian identity to all emotions, expressions and design details to contemporary indian products.