Bengaluru to turn into a temporary lab for artistic ideas and practices

Removed from the loud horns and traffic snarls, the team at Total Environment, a Bengaluru-based architecture and property development firm, is working on massive curved structures of grass and shrubs. Lined up together, these structures will give the appearance of a continuously twisting ribbon. The installation will be “a dream-like infinity loop”, explains the firm’s founder, Kamal Sagar.

In less than a fortnight, when the city witnesses the first edition of Bengaluru by Design, a design-centric event, this structure will be placed over the fountain on the concrete island at St Mark’s Circle. The installation will give passers-by in Bengaluru’s central business district a taste of what cities could look like with greaer interventions of green spaces. In the Whitefield neighbourhood, versions of this green cover will double as stalls selling everything from landscaping to home furniture.

Bengaluru by Design is a multi-disciplinary concept that will play out over 10 days in different parts of the city. It kicks off on November 23 and wraps up with a maker’s bazaar offering knick-knacks (December 1 and 2). Discourses and discussions, site-specific exhibits and workshops on paper origami, toy-making, perfumery, lighting, gaming, 3D printing, and so on, are all part of the event. “We want to democratise and demystify design,” say the event’s founders, Suprita Moorthy and Priyanka Shah Bhandary. 

Moorthy is a curator, historian, programme director of India Design Forum and an avid collector of dolls. Bhandary, a branding and design professional, is also a national-level tennis player. They came together to create curiosity about design in everyday life and to make it “more approachable”. 

In theory, that’s a tall order. In practice, it’s coming together beautifully. For instance, while Bhandary is curating a day-long event on wearable technology, Moorthy is collecting chairs for a project called 20+18. Says Moorthy, “A presence of a chair is akin to the presence of a person and design can really lift up the chair's attributes beyond its basic functionality."

Hoping to use stories to talk about design and aesthetics, also on display will be a documentary on the colour indigo, including how villagers in Dhamadka, Gujarat, extract the indigo dye (or asmani or neel) from plants by hand. Indigo’s story is told through a video installation by Asian Paints at UB City, Bengaluru’s upmarket mall.

Even the staircase at UB City will tell a story when Bengaluru by Design kicks off. Coated in 1,000-2,000 upcycled and recycled sheets from city-based Bluecat Paper, a maker of handmade paper, it’ll talk about freedom through a print of birds soaring towards the light. The event also hopes to promote environment-friendly design interventions, say the founders. Bluecat’s Kavya Madappa, for instance, makes paper not from trees, but from cotton and husks of corn and coffee. 

The UB City mall, the site for Madappa's installation, currently has over 200 artworks displayed as part of Art Bengaluru 2018. This ongoing festival features the work of 17 artists, including works by sculptor and enamellist Balan Nambiar. Artworks are priced between Rs 13,000 and Rs 6.5 million.

The Flying Drummers performing at Art Bengaluru 2018; Bengaluru-based architecture firm Total Environment will craft lush green spaces as part of Bengaluru by Design (Courtesy: Ola O Smit)

The works at Art Bengaluru, all mounted at UB City, include D Venkatapathy’s linear hillscapes in pen and ink on paper, Romicon Revola’s video projects on water, and Saju Kunhan’s oil canvas of a concrete jungle. Kunhan’s artwork has never been exhibited before owing to demands of space: it stands at 30’ by 8’ in its tribute to Mumbai, Kunhan’s “first experience of a mega city”.

The crowds brought in by back-to-back events such as this art exhibition as well as recent design-led conferences, like Bengaluru Design Week, are a testament to how the interest in artistic practices extends beyond designers, artists and collectors.

After Art Bengaluru 2018 wraps up on November 18 and Bengaluru by Design kicks off in pockets from Whitefield to Electronic City, UB City will continue to play host: this is the venue for talks organised by the India Design Forum, featuring those at the forefront of art and design interventions, including Revati Kant of Titan and Sanjay Garg of Raw Mango. The line-up of international speakers includes Brendan McGetrick, curator of UK’s Global Grad Show; Brian Parkes of Australia’s JamFactory; and London-based artist Karolina Merska, a pajaki maker (pajaki are Polish chandeliers crafted out of rye straw and paper). Some workshops are free, and talks are ticketed at Rs 3,000 for two days.

“We want people to have opinions on design. Hate it or like it, we want them to talk about it,” says Moorthy. As the festival looks at starting out in a few pockets and then expanding over the next few years to touch all of the city’s neighbourhoods, this is perhaps the beginning of a new identity for Bengaluru.

Art Bengaluru is on at UB City till November 18. Bengaluru by Design begins on November 23; registrations are open for talks and workshops. 

Visit www.bengalurubydesign.com