database curation, draft 02
What is the status of Indian architecture, design, art and photography today? As a method what are the possibilities that be pursued to locate this climate of production? Who/ what are key individuals/ projects which have significantly contributed to knowledge on things considered Indian? Deriving from this found position what then can be the tentative trajectory for futures in understanding Indian aesthetics?
Indianness of design/ aesthetics in general is an ever looming situation requiring a pertinent address. It’s understood as being introduced in concept post-independence towards pursuit of a national identity. There were and still persist strains of discussions on the subject. Lack of any adequate coherence is due to inconsistent local knowledge on its influencers. Design education in most aspects, an import, a result of which inspiration and references too are imports. It cannot be considered a failure of the system but a factor in time be pertinent enough that local designers find adequate space in discourses engaged. To facilitate a dedicated mainstream conversation on Indian architecture, design, art and photography museumofdesign.in is staged.
Proposed as a series of studies on contemporary Indian aesthetic trends, it aims to record current status of identified industries, [architecture/ design/ art & photography] locate climates of production, and recognise influencers. For an overview, the initial phase is to identify #india via curation from other ongoing publishing acts. Under each of the sectors popular plots i.e., sources used are as listed. What the process is akin to is to map the scale of work already documented and accessed online. All sources are operating under specific editorial positions while catering to their distinct audiences. An imagined aesthetic landscape is a derivative from within a defined field.
a) Architecture _ archdaily.com, architizer.com, designboom.com, dezeen.com, domusweb.it, worldarchitecturenews
b) Design _ designforindia.blogspot, designinindia.net, designwala.org, indiabydesign.wordpress, indiadesignmark, visionpehle.wordpress
c) Photography + Art _ artnet.com, flickr.com, indiaart.com, osians.com, saatchionline.com, saffronart.com
Re-posts on the site are often an extraction of what is tagged or understood as #india [material representing the country, made by a creator either residing in the country or is of local origin and projects physically located in the delineated national geography] is positioned here. Fashion and cuisine are considered too polarized to find a strain which can be coherently argued as being Indian, or for that matter contributory to a larger conversation. While music, theatre and cinema have their distinct platforms which systematically locate and recognise contributors. Limiting the scope of the problem enables detail while enforcing the ecosystem existing in publishing design.
Internet as product is relatively new. It has brought a more democratic state of information distribution inadvertently creating an age of creators and curators. With the decided editorial mandate, the landscape as to be observed will directly relate to what is readily accessed online (circa 2009 onward though #india content available can be even later). Essentially the project is intimated as a secondary review of an existing material disseminated. What are components added to the task and how it unfolds over its period of operation is left as purely as stochastic incidents, though an annual report of sorts will try a result of collected intelligence aim for regulation in upcoming goals. Whether or not the virtual leads to a physical space is an activity urgently speculated.