The Turning Point: Blending Indian culture and modern technology

The exhibition presents the works he has created over his five-decade long career, alongside 100 others from his personal art collection

MUMBAI: When architect and designer, and the voice to save Alibaug from unfettered development, Pinakin Patel was asked to think of Radha and Krishna to design modern furniture, he created the Jhulla (swing) bed — propelled with steel cables that rocks people gently to sleep. “Radha and Krishna were an amorous couple. I imagine them sleeping on a swing so I designed this piece,” he said.

The Turning Point: Blending Indian culture and modern technology

The bed is an accurate example of Patel’s practice that draws from Indian culture, lifestyle, geography, climate, the stories we resonate with, and modern technology. And it’s also playful, engineered in such a way that it will never bang against the walls or the sides. The tension that is created in the steel cables, which anchors the bed, is tangentially opposite. “So if you try to push the bed in one direction, the other cord immediately pulls it back on the other side,” explains Patel.

This and many similar objects are a part of Patel’s retrospective show The Turning Point, at Nilaya Anthology, which opened on Sunday. It presents the works he has created over his five-decade long career, alongside 100 others from his personal art collection. From January 31 onwards, the art created by his mentor Dashrath Patel, a multi-hyphenate artist and one of the earliest teachers at Ahmedabad’s National Institute of Design (NID), will be on display too.

“Pinakin began his exploration of how we live as Indians, how our lifestyle is informed by cultural choices, our values, geography and our history very early in his career,” says Pavitra Rajaram, creative director at Nilaya Anthology. “He then interprets them in a language (design) that we can call India Modern or India Contemporary,” she adds. It’s clean, with restricted ornamentation and where form equals function. This design philosophy has informed practices of several younger designers after him.

So, in many ways Patel’s creations have given India a new design thought.

Among his eleven works on display at the exhibition is also a fascinating Brahmaputra table, which has a water canal right in the centre. “It’s inspired by Kerala’s backwaters,” he says. One can fill it with water, float rose petals on it, and make the whole setting very tactile and enjoyable.

Then there is the gadda sofa. Back in the day, every Gujarati home had a gadda with bolsters. “It was minimal, yet the most versatile piece of furniture, which allowed a lot of flexibility,” explains Patel. One slept on it, and it doubled as a sofa when guests visited. Patel’s contemporary version of the gadda is a 12 feet by 12 feet piece of furniture that sits in the center of any room. This too adapts itself to different uses. For sleeping, seating guests, playing with pets and kids, etc.

But as our lifestyle and preferences evolved, Patel upgraded the piece to meet today’s requirements. It’s elevated because people are not comfortable sitting on the floor. It can be accessed from all four sides, so people can get onto it even with their shoes on. “Design lives on the peripheries of life,” says Patel. “It’s also a reflection of the socio-economic changes and the cultural inferences around me. And that’s my design inspiration.”

That’s what Patel calls ‘India modern’ or ‘India reinterpreted’. It’s in a way to say that no matter how we adapt to international living, but at heart and in our body language, there is a sense of Indianness in us and our design must reflect that.” For instance, how we cross our feet and get onto a sofa rather than sitting upright all day. The number of people who use a space or the way we use it are also different from the West.

Patel’s guru Dashrath Patel has also shaped and nurtured his design thinking. Showing his works in a way is to not just celebrate the artist but to also show how Pinakin learnt to think of design.

They met when Pinakin was in his 50s, when the senior Patel lived in Pinakin’s Alibaug home for about ten to twelve years. “He was a prolific artist and I saw how it all came together in his practice,” he says. Some of the creations from that time will be exhibited at the exhibition too alongside works from Patel’s personal art collection, which will be later auctioned by Pundole’s auction house. “I have enjoyed these works for a long time, and now I want other people to appreciate them.” These include a fiberglass work by Riyas Komu, small paintings by Dhruvi Acharya and more.

(The exhibition titled, The Turning Point, opened at Nilaya Anthology, Lower Parel, on Sunday and will go on till March 31.)