Drawings

 

Architectural Sketches

The Art of Spatial Representation

The Art of Spatial Representation
by Anuj Daga and Prashant Prabhu
presented at the Nine Fish Art Gallery, Byculla
16th November 2022, for Art35 event 


The notion of "space" has been central to both; the discipline of art as well as architecture in equal measure. The creation of this framework of space is what essentially gives context and meaning to our material reality and built environment. Thus, the act of representation of this space is crucial in the way we come to perceive and thereby create our realities.

While Euclidean planar geometry in the west produced buildings such as the monumental Pyramids, Greek cultures introduced the principles of ideal proportions in the Parthenon. Artistic experiments in the perfection of perspective drawings during the Renaissance were reflected in the axial and symmetrical urban spaces whereas the development of Cartesian coordinate geometry resulted into the monotony of the modernist building blocks. Alongside in the East, the Mughal and Pahari miniature paintings beautifully interwove time and space into an indistinct continuum with their free form flattened and skewed perspectives while Chinese gardens seem to emerge from their own unique ways of oblique representations.

However in the present day, the predominant form of houses all over the globe appear to be homogeneous and cookie cutter representations of the “notion of a house”. Could this sameness around us be related to the way in which we have come to understand and visually represent space today? Through an overview of different visual traditions of spatial representation across time and cultures, this presentation/conversation attempts to lay out the shifts in conception and creation of the built environment.

How does the nature of representation of space affect the way in which we imagine and intervene within our creative practice? How can the existence of various artistic practices be crucial in order to interrogate the established norms through which architectural spaces get represented today? Conversely, how can artists employ techniques of spatial imagination within the conception/imagination of their own work? This presentation is an invitation to interrogate and rethink the modes and means of imagining spatial realities to locate contemporary practice in art and architecture.

Download Presentation here

Daman Coastline

This is a Map of Daman coastline highlighting the fast transforming environmental features all the way from Bhilad to Nani Daman Fort, created by Vastavikta Bhagat during our field visit for the Environmental Design Studio during June 2022. 

The premise of the studio was to articulate environmental questions for the emerging consolidation of the 12km long coastline of the Union Territory of Daman along the coat of Arabian Sea that is primarily geared towards serving a middle and upper class tourism market; and thereby articulate architectural responses to soften the impacts due to such hardening of the edge. 

Artwork by Apurva Talpade

This is a piece of work by artist Apurva Talpade. Apurva has been toying with blocks for a long time. 

For this work, she collected a variety of figures from miniature paintings, and brought them together to create a world of their own. Each figure enjoys its own space while being self absorbed. None of them require the other necessarily. They exist in their own company, happy and joyous. The horse, the elephant, the peacock, the fist, or even the tree, flower cloud and umbrella - precisely know where they have to be. There is no expectation from any other creature to be anywhere else. In their gentle dispositions, they create and inhabit their own worlds. 

Block prints are more often than not conceived in a manner of repetition, and regularity. Apurva has pinned this work on her wall, which I kept gazing for a long time. What glued me to the work is the tension created between these figures through the white space left between them. The strategic distribution of empty space allows each object to be within their own world. To be sure, there is no larger world within Apruva's canvas. This clever balance of disparate figures co-existing within the same frame is the perhaps the success of the work. My note here is very underdeveloped, precisely because I am still trying to figure out why I am enjoying this work so much.

Until I find answers, please do look at Apurva Talpade's other works. 

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