This is the third progression of a series using bamboo. Expression2000 , an exhibition done in my college years, used bamboo and cloth to create the exhibition space within an auditorium. The viewer moved within and around the network of bamboos and the exhibits. The structure punctured through the auditorium and connected opposite ends of the space.
The second was a set design for a play, Woyzcek. Shuttering systems for concrete structures were adapted to make a multi-level set. The set itself surrounded the audience completely, like a theatre-in-the-round, except that they were in the center and the play was performed from with-out. The small space became aggressively introverted, and dingy controlled lighting only accentuated this.
This third piece builds on many aspects of the above two. The main difference is that here the structure itself is the exhibit and nothing else, unlike in Expression where it held exhibits or in Woyzcek where it was a set.
As an architect I have always been fascinated with concrete shuttering structures. Its ‘jugar’-ness, although haphazard, is utility based. Similarly shadi-pandaals and the bengalli migrant labour that makes them in delhi. Both these structures are used as a base, a skeleton. They are not the objective but a means to another. In shuttering it is obviously the building-that-will-be. After the concrete sets, the structure is mercilessly broken down and transported to be used somewhere else. In pandals the main bamboo structure is completely covered with fabric and panels such that it looks like a palace or a ship or whatever. Even here the bamboo is reused, like it was after Expression and Woyzcek. So it will be after this installation. But of course in this installation the bamboo is the Kohinoor, the object, the exhibit.
Bamboo, a fascinating material, was used extensively in actual construction till a few decades back, especially in Bengal and the north-east. Today, with modern cement-concrete on the prowl, more than 65% of bamboo is used for paper pulping in India. In fact India and China provide 80% of the world’s bamboo paper-pulp. The ambience of the space: introverted-ness; claustrophobia; anti-social; bland; gaudy; overpowering; uncomfortable; cornered. Everyone lives in their own protected spaces, not only physically but also figuratively. In all aspects. Who they meet. What they do. What they talk about. How they live. I want to force the viewer to encounter a new space that compels them to behave extra-ordinarily. To rethink. To doubt. To even dismiss.
