The installation DEVI is part of collaboration with leather puppetry artists, Anjanappa and his team from Nimmalakuntha. Once at the height of popular culture this form of theatre demanded the artist to be trained in singing, puppet playing and crafting the puppets. Today the quality of leather puppetry has suffered due to adjunct design interventions and market driven forces. This was taken up as an opportunity to explore how design could help these forms to embrace the current milieu.
The installation was developed as a foldable lamp with integrated lighting system. The computational development of modular members allowed great accuracy and help in quality and assembly. It was part of JIYO initiative and exhibited at their exhibition at Religare Gallery in New delhi.
MICA BEES. A computer aided design was used to construct these faceted forms of bees crafted by metal smiths and framed with luminous and translucent sheaves of mica.
An industrious scene is created celebrating the hard work always in progress in a city that is fast allowing its natural assets to shrink.
The artwork was created by Rajeev Sethi Scenographers, conceptualised and designed by Virsingh in collaboration with craftsmen Zuber Khan, Fayad Ahmed and Suresh. It is currently part of a larger installation of various artworks by different artists at hotel Hayatt, Chennai.
ASHWATTA. Modeled around the idea of the Ashwatta tree this lamp intended to explore new dimensions of Sujani craft (simple running stitch) from Bihar. Traditionally this craft has been widely used in making quilts and occasionally garments. The lamp also tries to unmask the amount of skill and labor that goes in Sujani. Conceptually this love of labor was combined with geometries of Tensigrity structures, where both acted as balancing elements.
The lamp uses the quality of the fabric as a tensile membrane that would balance the compression members. The members in compression push the fabric outwards almost as a stretched canvas to create a volume inside. The simple knockdown structure inside is integrated with lighting, which then displays the fine sujani work on the fabric.
This lamp was part of JIYO Initiative.
COSMIC FRAGMENTS is a leather puppetry lamps installation designed by nous studio and hand crafted by leather puppetry artists from Nimmalakuntha.
This light installation combines Tholu Bommalatta iconography and the archetype of angels as represented in Italian Renaissance painting.
The new vocabulary is upon the interpretation of puppetry artists who have evolved with the time in their version of the milieu. The installation is composed of three fragments, recalling the ideal unity: their surface is treated as parts of a major fresco. The lamp was developed in collaboration with leather puppetry artist Anjanappa Kanday.
Designed by nous studio, the leather puppetry lamp GALAXY is drawn and hand painted by leather puppetry artist Anjanappa Kanday from Nimmalakunta.
Each lamp is unique since it is a result of collaboration between nous studio and the leather puppeteer. Images, patterns, and expressions of the puppets are drawn from the imagination of the artist, hence in each lamp there are elements of novelty.
The movement of the figures and patterns of their garments together with the volume of the lamp create interesting and different combinations.
TAOREA is a leather puppetry lamp hand crafted and painted by leather puppetry artist Anjanappa Kanday. The traditional Tholu Bommalatta iconography is interpreted by the designers along with the artist in order to convey a sense of fluid movement on the surface of the lamp.
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