Textile Narratives | Museums and Galleries in London

Textiles are a key component of our material history, the importance of which cannot be understated. They need to be considered holistically; each piece is not only a product, a design, or even a piece of art, but is also a method of passing on a story. On our recent visit to London, C&J visited a range of textile exhibitions to observe the role of textiles in telling stories across the globe.

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Museums in India and Architecture of Diversity

“Real museums are places where Time is transformed into Space,” said Orhan Pamuk in his novel, The Museum of Innocence. The relationship between time and space is undeniable when it comes to museums and galleries, where people and their artworks are tied within the confines of the present. The role of the museum must serve the purpose of relaying tales of the era they come from despite the immobile disposition of the artefacts in display. The performative aspects of museums and memorabilia are fascinating because of this precise juxtaposition of ‘timescapes’ and interaction.

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Travel | Journey through Vana

An hour’s drive from the Dehradun airport through forests of Uttarakhand, we reached Vana, a wellness stay carefully designed for a holistic experience offering Yoga, Meditation, Ayurvedic treatments, Tibetan Healing, Spa and conscious cuisine midst a 21-acre green land. A brainchild of Veer Singh, Vana engages all five senses with its elements that are well thought out and inspired by minimalistic Japanese Buddhism and ancient Indian wisdom. Some other offerings at the space are art, music and dance residencies.

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Rediscovering the Courtyard: The beauty of common gathering spaces

We have always been sensitive and susceptible to our environments, as beings accustomed to activity and movement. Our collective spaces of engagement are usually divided between the private and the public, here exemplified by domestic courtyard houses (patio, riad, haveli) and the common marketplace (souk). Historically, courtyard homes are responses to community values (social, cultural, and religious) and the ways in which people gathered were influenced by trade relations that led to exchange of socio-cultural aspects of different communities.

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In Conversation with Oral Historian, Aanchal Malhotra

An author and oral historian, Aanchal Malhotra’s debut novel Remnants of a Separation: A History of Partition through Material Memory is a moving exploration of personal stories of the journeys made across the Radcliff Line, during the 1947 Partition of the Indian sub-continent. Her work is a ground-breaking milestone in the socio-cultural ethnographic study of the greatest migration in history.

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A tête-à-tête with Shilo Shiv Suleman

Bangalore-based artist, Shilo Shiv Suleman, is an INK Fellow and the Founder-Director of ‘The Fearless Collective’— a movement to reclaim public spaces through community art and participative storytelling. Her creative pursuits encompass illustrations and installation art that meditate on magic, technology, the feminine, and the divine.

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Cosmic Symbolism and Textiles of Mexico

When the mind explores the symbol, it is led to ideas that lie beyond the reach of reason." Carl G. Jung

If the environment determines the type of perception and this is the essence of graphic expression, then we understand why this actual art seems so remote to us. We live in a culture where science determines our perceptions of reality and not of the environment ...

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Photo Essay | Mrs S with Raw Mango

Mrs. S finds a sense of belonging in mundane experiences with her other half. There is a melancholy tone to this visual essay that explores unsaid love, the subtle romance of the old days, a distant closeness, a sense of familiarity and belonging. It has the sound of emptiness in it and sweetness of a ripened fruit at the same time, just like a slumber on a winter afternoon.

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