07:09:2018
Somerset House – Biennal Exhibition 2018
A State of Indigo – India
Exhibition Review by Harry Toller
In early September, I visited Somerset House for the London Design Biennale 2018 exhibition which was an exhibition covering over 40 countries from the Netherlands to Israel where the designers where given the pitch to convey a political, social and cultural issue in their country with the title of “Emotional States”.
I was drawn to India’s installation initially because of the impact of the immersive wave of blues thrust upon you once you enter the room. It overwhelms your senses before you understood what the room was about it puts the viewer into a state of calmness with soothing varieties of blue throughout the room combined with a soft carpeted floor and draped curtains around the rooms with a sea like resemblance and a cushioned comforting feeling encapsulating your peripheral vision.
“The story of indigo is closely aligned with India’s design identity. As a natural form of dye, it is a reminder of traditional methods of cultivating and processing textiles that were pioneered in the subcontinent. In terms of its status as a colour that is inseparable from luxury and desire on the one hand, and exploitation on the other, it is a highly ideologically loaded design tool, which needs to be asserted as being representative of India’s design identity.” – Curator: Priya Khanchandani.
The aim of the piece was embellished by the film playing on the walls in the centre of the room depicting the workers, who stand in a line thrashing the water with their outstretched legs. showing exploited hours of hard labour to produce only a small bar of concentrated dye, known as ‘blue gold’. This blue gold produced has connotations of Mayan turquoise as an item of luxury and rarity and when the viewer understands this a far deeper appreciation for the room and installation adorned with indigo cloth. Yet in this culture it is such a seemingly meaningless aspect of our life with indigo production helping to produce mundane items such as denim jeans and other textile fabrics that we wouldn’t hesitate to buy, use and discard. This translation of how meaningful something can be to one group of people and then so meaningless to another is very resounding to the world we live in today, and a small installation can have such a broad meaning spanning over global culture rather than just one country.
Once I understood what the installations meaning was I appreciated the piece even more and understood that the designers had really managed to convey a message of shouting about their piece through the art work, once you entered the room there was no ignoring the colour and what was going on, and if you were at all interested in discovering what it was about you only had to read to delve into a greater understanding and I think it is something that is equally mesmerising as it is disturbing with negative link to colonialism and slavery prevalent throughout the British Empire. However, the idea that this colour has such a rich heritage to India with both positive and negative aspects in the culture of the country only adds to the emotion. The process which has gone largely unchanged for millennia is brought to us who would likely never seek to understand the process have it thrust in our faces to comprehend and really accept as to what is happening without our understanding without being able to squirm away and try not to swallow that pill that western society doesn’t particularly like to accept responsibility for. The indiscrete nature of the piece with its overwhelming presence works hand in hand with each other. The ‘two pronged’ nature of this piece shows the intelligence behind it and how the installation works as a form of art and as an instrument to convey a message about India’s cultural, political and social issues. This piece has a great resonance with today’s society about understanding what happens out of sight and mind for a consumer society but has such a large impact on people we would have never stopped to think about and shows a lot of prevalent issues in the global community but manages to address them in a peaceful but powerful manner.
credit by:
- Administering Body: The Gujral Foundation
- Designers: Hanut Ewari, Feroze Gujral, Shaunak Mehboobani and Aparna Konat
- Curator: Priya Khanchandani
Harry Toller 