Shortlisted

One of the photographs I submitted for  the 'Home' category of the 'INDIA Future of Change' photographic competition has been shortlisted: 'INDIA Future of Change'.

India Future of Change

Some of the MS:SP Fellowship photos from India have been included in the 'India Future of Change' photographic competition.

You can see them on the flicker site here: India Future of Change.

Still Landing

Made a brief and unplanned presentation this week to the Art & Design Foundation students at City College of some of the films of craftspeople working in both Bangladesh and Gujarat. The films prompted some debate about the economics of crafts and lots of questions and subsequent talk about the nature of craft and design in theses countries. Both staff and students were really interested and there was a silence and stillness in the room as they watched. It was great to see them learning and engaged in what they were seeing, to share what I had experienced as part of the fellowship and get responses to what I had produced. - (they even applauded at the end a lovely surprise!).
Since returning I have been brought back into the reality of juggling work, teaching, being a father and a husband whilst grabbing snippets to reflect on the amazing experience I have had. The time and space to think, look, observe, record and just absorb has been wonderfully refreshing and personally shifting. I have flashbacks - vivid scenes of places I visited on the fellowship, some stills and some moving images. I want to get into the thirty + DVD's of data - images and films - to start filtering, re-experiencing, contextualising and responding creatively to what I have seen. At the moment I'm struggling to find the space to do this. Since returning I have been very fortunate to be proposed and offered new projects and possibilities which are exciting developments of the MSSP fellowship and new ventures - work must go on and deadlines must be met, money earnt.
I've started to 'Backfill" the blog, adding images, text and films on the days I hadn't covered ( resizing the photos and selecting through them was taking lots of time whilst away and I thought it better to be out looking rather than sitting in front of a computer). I'm sorting through the imagery, the books and papers as well as the collections of objects I brought / sent back from both Bangladesh and Gujarat, picking out things. The flashbacks and thoughts I have, get noted down in my sketchbook and  we've cooked and eaten food I experienced on my travels. All aspects of filtering and evaluating what may have the potential for further development.
I have enjoyed the photography, - it became a new tool, something I hadn't used much in my work and I have been looking at other photographers and there work in a very different way, even looking at possible routes of study in the subject. I started to explore the weaving the bamboo baskets and fans. The metal baskets and textiles are displayed in my studio space and around the house, helping me make connections and promting ideas and memories. I tried cutting fine strips of steel to use to weave a basket and explore how the metal basket from Bangladesh was made - just to try to reproduce it - to understand how the material might work. Unfortunately the guillotine couldn't cope with such fine strips and they buckled and bent. I need to explore other ways of getting thin strips of metal cut without them folding or twisting.... laser/ water-jet cutting? rolling wire?

I decided to use some of the raw cotton paper from the Ghandi Ashram factory to undertake some tests in weaving too. decided to laser cut the strips out, and spent some time testing out different widths and settings on the laser - whilst they were cutting the patterns looked like the rows of rice drying at the rice mills in Bangladesh.
Off to the Harley next week to meet up with the rest of the project team and the artists who have come over to the UK.

Copperwork

Watch Coppersmiths in the old city in Ahmedabad making water vessels here. Coppersmiths

Finishing

Elephants

Across the river from the City Museum and the Tagore Memorial Hall is an area known as Jamalpur, its close to the old calico mills and there are large fruit and flower markets here which I had passed through many times before in a rickshaw.

I decided to walk back to Arts Reverie from the museum over Sandar Bridge and through Jamalpur. I had been told the elephants which I had seen around the city, crossing Ellis Bridge, eating greens in Manek Chowk, and collecting alms in Gandhi Road were housed in this area, near the Jagdush Mandir, and I thought I would take a closer look on my route back to Dhal ne Pol.

I had once seen an exhibition of Henry Moores drawings of an elephants skull at the Towner Art Gallery in Eastbourne and been struck both by the scale and the complexity of the form of the skull.

The elephants were trully amazing..... and inquisitive! I was great to be so close to such wonderful and huge beasts. Many were old, with pigment loss on their trunks.

It was the end of the day and they were being settled down for the night, their 'saddles' were stacked against the wall of a building.

On the way home I passed Jamalpur Gate or 'Darwaja', one of the many gates which once allowed passage beyond the walled city.

The walls of the city, built in the late 1400's, have now all but disappeared. Those gates which remain are now often small islands of calmness and history caught in the middle of the busy traffic which passes around the ring road to the city. Its interesting that both Dhaka and Ahmedabad have growing voices calling for the protection of their architectural heritage. The Pols and Haveli's in Ahmedabad and the colonial houses and city gateways in Old Dhaka.

Tagore Memorial Hall - Ahmedabad

I had seen the outside of the Tagore Memorial Hall during my first few days in Ahmedabad and had been meaning to return for a more detailed look. The building is quiet amazing, the hall is situated on the bank of the Subarmati River in the City of Ahmedabad, very close to the National Institute of Design and the Ahmedabad City Museum. As a theatre it seats 750 and was built in 1971 from cast concrete, the structure is a series of reinforced concrete frames.The building was designed by the architect Balkrishna Doshi. The hall is named in memory of Rabindranath Tagore a famous Bengali poet, novelist, musician, painter and playwright, who helped shape both Indian and Bengali culture. He was a vocal critic of the British Raj, a supporter of Independence and had penned both the Indian and Bangladesh national anthems.

I like the way the interior structure carries through the 'skin' and out to the exterior of the building.

The transition of the forms in the columns was very beautiful, as was the scale and light.

Like Khans Institute of management building and the architecture of the old city everywhere there were views with multiple layered frames.