Rangoli

Modern India is emerging, and with it a wave of designers who take the old skills and marry them to contemporary needs. India Inc. Conran, is currently hosting an exhibit that displays these works. Unfortunately the website does not show where these exhibits are taking place. It must be a secret for some secret society? If anyone has some insight it would be greatly appreciated.


India Inc. Conran draws riches from national treasure chest. New Delhi-based furniture, accessories, and interior designer Alex Davis knows the meaning of cultural exchange: Trained in India and Italy, he's worked under Stefano Giovannoni, won his own awards at the Milan Furniture Fair, and designed public seating for the Airport Authority of India. So when The Conran Shop invited him to participate in Rangoli—a selling exhibition of contemporary Indian work that debuts September 25 at the store in London, Paris, New York, and japan—he nabbed the opportunity to offer a glimpse into the Indian design scene. Davis's series of surreal, polished stainless-steel plants (potted agaves and creepers, a lily pond) is a mash-up of traditional craft methods with ultramodern ones, like laser-cutting and argon-welding. While The Conran Shop has turned to India for years to manufacture many of its products, Rangoli—named for the Hindu folk art of creating complicated graphic patterns from brightly colored powders—is the first collection derived purely from local talent. Creative director Polly Dickens selected 14 Indian designers, from renowned fashion designer Manish Arora to emerging textile artist jigisha Patel, and commissioned each to produce an exclusive set of mostly handmade objects. And unlike the anonymous $42 Indian stainless-steel tea service that has been a mainstay at the store for the past year, prices for Rangoli's artisanal offerings average in the hundreds of dollars. To foster experimentation—especially with the meticulous handicraft for which India is known—Dickens requested only that participants follow "their own style and aesthetic." For textile manufacturer Ka-lam Designs, with whom Dickens has worked regularly, this meant creating six $1,500 cotton-and-silk sampler quilts (pictured above) highlighting their most complicated techniques, plus a $2,400 showstopper based on graphic designer Aditya Pande's intricate line drawings. "Usually, I try to take work out of a Karam product to keep to a price point," says Dickens. "In this project, there were no restrictions." Through October 28. www.conran.com — MEAGHAN O'NEILL

article from I.D. Magazine September/October 2007