Tracing an umbilical cord that connects our present to the first layer of human endeavour, ‘India & the World’ told a compelling tale that binds India and her people to the histories of humanity. The design of the exhibition by Somaya and Kalappa Consultants set an engaging stage for the story to unfold.
On 18th January 2010, BBC Radio 4 and the British Museum initiated the first in a landmark series of programmes titled ‘The History of the World in 100 Objects’. Written and presented by the British Museum director Neil MacGregor, the series was accompanied by a book and a major exhibition. This was the point of conceptual origin for ‘India & the World: A History in Nine Stories’. It took the curatorial and design team over three years to arrive at the 218 objects that frame the nine sections of India & the World exhibition. Objects have a voice: they speak to you in many languages and can tell you about events and ideas from the viscera of history.
While the original exhibition was to travel the world, the organisers questioned the relevance of bringing a pre-curated exhibition to India for the Indian audiences. Rather, it was discussed that the India exhibition must tell stories that are central to the history, culture and society of the peoples of Indian subcontinent and their many civilisations. From the archives of the British Museum, London; CSMVS, Mumbai; the National Museum, New Delhi, and from more than 20 other museums and private collections, the objects were brought together to structure nine narratives: Shared Beginnings, First Cities, Empire, State and Faith, Picturing the Divine, Indian Ocean Traders, Court Cultures, Quest for Freedom and Time Unbound.
Icons represent the thematic areas of the exhibition – a journey through time and space narrated by the ‘voiceful’ objectsCo-curators J D Hill and Naman Ahuja framed the central agenda of the exhibition in the idea of juxtaposition of incongruent objects that may enable one to draw previously unclear historical parallels meant to provoke an alternate reading of history – a reading that does not adhere to linear progression – but the one where messy and contrasting layers of the past are superimposed in the favour of uncanny revelations.
Brinda Somaya and Nandini Somaya Sampat of Somaya & Kalappa Consultants were tasked to design the exhibition, and perhaps one of their most central challenges was to be able to decipher the nine stories in a visual comment and to design a space that can enable the voice of the objects to be heard. SNK created a set – a backdrop and a frame in the form of exhibition design – working with space, light and colour for the curatorial agenda to manifest. Nandini stresses on the significance of the idea that the design of space must be able to narrate ‘a’ story of India and not ‘the’ story of India through the presented artefacts. As one traverses the exhibition, one is made aware of a significant deviation from the norm: the exhibition is not a white box! Instead, each space and each story unfolds against vibrant colours and subtly changing light. In one sweep, the monolithic nature of the gallery space is deconstructed, and the new vitrines become critical stage for the story told by the artefacts themselves.
The designers and curators seem to have taken great care in organising the proxemics of the exhibition space. Much care was taken while placing relics in a way that one can connect the dots. Thus, a 17th century Mughal portrait of Jahangir admiring a Virgin Mary portrait and a Rembrandt drawing of Jahangir receiving an officer in his court from the same time were carefully positioned in the design to represent surprising cross-pollination of cultures and the power of travelling images. The exhibition design takes due care of the nuances of abstract curatorial gestures. The sequence is important in India & the World. However it is also important to have moments where one can break the sequence, look at two disparate objects and make an imaginary hypothesis. The layout enables each visitor to create a personal myth by breaking away from the prescribed path. These self-conjured counternarratives are perhaps the larger intent of the exhibition: in a world where histories are regularly cast in monolithic storylines, diagonal readings help one to realise that evidences of our past can often be intentionally misread.
The Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS or the erstwhile Prince of Wales Museum) in Mumbai is a tricky space to navigate. The Indo-Saracenic structure is a labyrinth of rooms and corridors with rare moments of cohesion in the form of a central atrium. The design of the exhibition accounts for the strangeness of the museum space by creating movements and sequences that permit the story to be told. The incongruous gallery space thus disappears behind the set and the design does not seek to complement the architecture of CSMVS. Rather, the design re-orients a visitor completely towards the immersive exhibition.
The nine segments of the exhibition – each discussing a particular pivotal moment in the history of the Indian subcontinent – are designed with specific materiality, context, dimension and proximity. The design by Somaya and Kalappa Consultants enables one to appreciate the value of collaborative work. One only has to look at the same exhibition as presented at the National Museum in Delhi to register the difference. Apart from the controversial and ad hoc omissions of curated objects, the sterile white boxes flooded with light in the National Museum do little to support the curatorial agenda. In that context, the only protagonists of the exhibition are the objects which, by themselves, have a significant historic voice but the voice of the curators is diminished. Exhibition design seems to be a territory where architecture, set-design and communication design overlap. Good design enables ‘India & the World’ to tell its tale.
Today, in India, where museums and galleries have been unable to excite the imagination of the common man, the CSMVS exhibition, with landmark footfall for India & the World, informs us that maybe, the curatorial and design effort, united with the impulse to narrate compelling stories can re-kindle that lost cause. It is also important to realise that public galleries and museums that are truly civic buildings and can lend themselves to play a larger political, cultural and educational role, must not be benign territories for cursory viewing of history. Rather, they must strive to provoke⊗
SOMAYA AND KALAPPA CONSULTANTS (now SNK) is a multidisciplinary architecture and design practice based in Mumbai. Founded in 1978, the acclaimed firm is presently led by Brinda Somaya and Nandini Somaya Sampat. Over the last four decades, SNK has grown into an inclusive and collaborative practice that has worked on many significant projects that include residential, institutional, public and corporate developments. SNK has also worked extensively in the domains of conservation architecture and urban design. With over fifty architects, designers, engineers and administrative personnel the firm has received many significant national and international awards. The firm’s important projects include restoration of Louis I Kahn buildings at Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Tata Consultancy Services Campus at Indore, Restoration and Refurbishment of the Bombay House and India & the World Exhibition.
