New Delhi – An exhibition highlighting contemporary Indian handmade design looks to recontextualise traditional crafts in order to consider how they can be used in the future.
BE OPEN, a global think tank that cultivates creativity, is hosting the exhibition as part of its North/South – East/West project.
The exhibition will feature work from 24 designers based at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts in New Delhi. Each designer has been tasked with designing a piece of work that uses traditional skills, such as inlaying marble, woodworking or weaving.
‘We feel that the future of the handmade is about keeping it out of the moribund museum space and instead making it live and breathe by becoming part of the market economy,’ says Yelena Baturina, founder of BE OPEN. ‘We have been encouraging India’s most promising designers to think beyond their usual market and giving them the opportunity to present their work from a completely new perspective, so that it appeals to a much wider, international audience.’
BE OPEN’s project and exhibition is focusing on the most important upcoming demographic, the New Emerging Affluents. For more, see our tribes section.