Exhibition Design

Commissioned by:

embrace OUR

RIVERS

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EXHIBITION DESIGN PRESENTATION

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Komal Goyal 10th March 2018

In collabration with

Project Brief

Embrace our Rivers was proposed as an Education & Awareness program on Water in an attempt to make Cooum a cleaner Cooum. It would contribute to a public friendly and participatory action to manage the river in a sustainable manner by the Governance. School children, college students, officials, professionals and citizens in general were the expected participants and benefactors of the event.

It was proposed to achieve the objective through various activities involving different sections of society. The innovative focus was on contemporary art forms and displays created by more than 20 artists of eminence from India and other nations such as Germany, France, Korea and Netherlands. Each of the artistic exhibits were created to connect, convey and demonstrate the social, technological or engineering principle related to one or more aspects of water and the river Cooum.

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The main objective of the program “Embrace Our Rivers Public.Art.Awareness” is to establish an emotional and techno‐social connect between Cooum and the people, the abiotic and biotic stakeholders, through the medium of Art & Technology Combine.

The program held from 15th Feb to 15th Mar. 2017 is designed to showcase the organic links among the multiple actors having a single objective to rejuvenate the river Cooum and integrate it in the larger canvas of the City’s eco‐scape.

DAMned ART

AREA 1

Walkway Archival Panel Using a life-sized archival image of Chennai and the River Cooum/Kovam as an invitation to draw people into the space and through time, the exhibition set the mood and the note for Cooum’s past and present and its role in the city’s history, culture and narrative.

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AREA 2

Cafe / Breakout zone The art cafe draws from the dramatic yellow walls of the run-down cottage on premise and will enhance the idea of Bohemian Chennai. Drawing inspiration from vendor push carts and public space seating like pavements, stone benches, sand and sea, the area created the ambience and experience of public space.

Crate seating Food stands Tables Tyre seating Dig-pit Installation

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AREA 3

Stage and outdoor workshop area Lalit Kala Academy has a large outdoor space with natural elements. Both pre-and post gallery visits allow people to linger and lounge around outside.

From our research and understanding and expertise in designing public friendly exhibitions and art shows, we felt that the local, cultural aspect of the topic around (rivers/city/culture) needed to be enhanced and presented. We also proposed that the space draw from elements of Indian urban public space, and create a collective, community experience.

The stage seating area planned seating for 100 people and the rest could be accommodated on floor using mats, when events and crowds grew.

Crate seating Tyre seating

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DAMned ART

AREA 4

Gallery Entrance hallway We proposed three colour themes, brown-grey, white and Orange as the primary colours of the exhibition, to try and create an artist studio/grunge/ contemporary look. At the entrance hallway, we propose the staircase wall be painted orange with text DAM(N)ED ART written over it.

The installation consists of an Indian post-box that is painted blue and filled with postcards for the public to engage with (as they exit after having viewed the gallery). The postcards used images from artists works in the gallery and were allowed as takeaways. The public was urged to write letters to the rivers and tie up the cards in the venue.

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DAMned ART

AREA 5 Gallery space

For the Inner gallery experience, we proposed working with two key themes. The space was imagined as an artists’ studio. Aesthetics, display, function, viewing are all influenced by this idea.

The gallery was imagined less as a walk-through experience and more as a lounging around experience. So some lounge and seating areas have been proposed within.

The Curators had already decided on the spaces for the exhibits. The team proposed specific visualisations for each of those works in terms of display. and created a walkthrough video.

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DAMned ART

Komal Goyal +91 96240 60309 issuu.com/komalgoyal

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komal.agoyal@gmail.com

DAMned ART