Glimpse of Asia

The 'Glimpse of Asia' event took place at the Museum of Childhood with lots of music, dancing, food and activities. 

The boat workshop went well with lots of people making the models. It was good fun and great that many wanted to take their boats home, although sad that we didn't manage to capture them all together as one giant fleet!

Building boats - making toys

The exhibition finishes at the V&A Museum of Childhood this weekend and moves on to the Harley Gallery in Nottinghamshire. To mark the end of the London show the MoC has organised an event celebrating Asian culture:  'A glimpse of Asia'.

I have been asked for ideas for a one day collaborative project / installation inspired by the exhibition and MSSP project and suitable for working with all ages of visitors to the museum.
Two thoughts a came to mind, both similar in process: -  participants could personalise a standard design on flat sheet of card using coloured pencils, cut it out,learn to fold and form it to make a 3D object, add their own creation as part of a larger shared collaborative piece. They can also make another to take home.

Looking back through the sketchbooks my first thought was to make a wall panel of folded flowers - paper versions of the metal ones in the show and inspired by the textiles, garlands and offering flowers I had seen in India and Bangladesh, the block printing, the wall paintings and the project with the children at the school. Individuals could colour in their own flowers or add messages to the petals, then pin them together with others to make a vivid panel of colour and texture.

The second; a flotilla of boats to grow and float its winding way across the museum floor. 

Inspired by the boats in Bangladesh, the visit to the Boat museum, the toy 'put-put' boats in the markets in Bangladesh and India, the boat yards at Mandvi and the tin toys in the Museum of Childhood.

The boat idea won the day, so I have been designing and making simple card models of boats from a single A4 sheet, forms that can be personalised, easily cut out, scored, folded and assembled with minimal equipment and resources (so far I have one like the putt putt boats, another based on a bangladesh boat).

The A4 template sheets can be copied onto card.

I hope it will be a fun day and we will be able to make lots of them, it will be great to see them cover part of the floor and weave its way across one of the museum spaces.

Mandvi- The Boat Yard

Mandvi is located on the banks of the Rukmavati river which flows into the Arabian Sea in the Gulf of Kutch.  Mandvi was originally a fortified town and dates back to the late sixteenth century (1581 AD).

The town is most popularly known for its 400 year old ship yard. The local carpenters still make ocean going Dhows in much the same way that their ancestors had done a century ago. Ocean-going vessels from Mandvi travel between Zanzibar in Africa and Calcutta in eastern India via the ports of Arabia, the Persian gulf and the western coast of India.  The tradition of boat building and sailing made Mandvi an important port in the 17th Century.

The ship yard is beside the main road along the river and it is easy to see the men at work, These great vessels are still constructed with hand tools and there scale is stunning. 

Beautifully flowing forms are made from huge pieces of wood. Rows of regular bolts and pegs coax the timbers into position creating complex curves. 

Makeshift skeletal structures surround and contrast with these streamlined and solid forms and look barely strong enough to have any effect in stabilising the structures.

The Boat Museum

The Boat Museum is a project set up to preserve the crafts skills, knowledge and traditions of boatbuilding in Bangladesh. The museum is situated on land owned by the Bengal group, a company that created the Bengal Foundation, a charitable organisation set up to support Bengali arts and culture. The museum set up by Yves Marre and Runa Khan Marre, is in its early development, there are some full scale boats, and craftsmen are commissioned to make scale models of the many different types of boats of Bangladesh. The project does charitable work, designing and building a hospital boat for communities in North Bangladesh (the friendship prioject) and is working on a project to redesign a more stable fishing boat for Bengali fishermen. The current design is being developed using bio resins and natural fibres. The fishermen would also be supported in buying their own boats and a loan system would help release them from the cycle of debt that many fishermen find themselves in.

I was interested to see the shapes and forms of the boats and to see how the models were made. I liked the staples, which have a similar quality to the boats from Kerela. Traditional boats from along the Malabar coast are said to have been stitched together. Folklore has it that the Sirens song had such a strong, magnetic attraction it would pull the iron nails from the boats and draw the sailors to their death.

The museum is situated on the Bangshi river, in the Tara Tari shipyard. 

Owen went back some days later to interview a young French man, Corentin de Chatelperron, who had been working with the museum and developing a special boat. He was planning to sail, single handed, back to France ( Tara Tari Project). Here is the link to Owens interview and Images.