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A meditative play of heavy bluish light, rippling indigo-dyed fabrics and the quiescent hum of artisanal soundscapes greet visitors astatine ‘Blue Futures: Reimagining Indigo’, a caller accumulation astatine Hampi Art Labs (HAL) that celebrates indigo arsenic some colour and taste memory. The amusement brings unneurotic starring artists from India, France and Japan to hint indigo’s travel – from its past origins successful the Indian subcontinent to its revival successful planetary art, manner and sustainable design.
“Indigo, a colour calved of India’s ungraded and stories, becomes a awesome of sustainability, creativity and planetary dialogue. We judge creation has the powerfulness to link communities, animate alteration and signifier a much imaginative future”Sangita JindalChairperson of JSW Foundation
The exhibition, conceptualised by the JSW Foundation, opened connected November 2. It was inaugurated by Sangita Jindal, Chairperson of the foundation, astatine Hampi Art Labs adjacent the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Hampi successful Vijayanagara territory of Karnataka. It marks the venue’s archetypal in-house curatorial task since the centre opened earlier this year.
Curated by Meera Curam, Residency Director astatine Hampi Art Labs, Blue Futures features works by Manish Nai, a Mumbai-based sculptor known for transforming municipality discarded into textured forms; Aboubakar Fofana, a Paris- and Mali-based indigo dye maestro celebrated for his integrated processes; Japan’s corporate Studio Buaisou, which is reviving accepted indigo farming; and Alwar Balasubramaniam, whose experimental enactment explores cognition and worldly transformation.
Inaugurating the exhibition, Mrs. Jindal said that Blue Futures represents the imaginativeness of Hampi Art Labs to nurture caller conversations betwixt contented and innovation. “Indigo, a colour calved of India’s ungraded and stories, becomes a awesome of sustainability, creativity and planetary dialogue. We judge creation has the powerfulness to link communities, animate alteration and signifier a much imaginative future,” she said.
At the bosom of the accumulation lies the Indigo Pavilion, an immersive installation wherever indigo-dyed textiles ripple similar h2o nether brushed bluish light. Archival material, sound, and modern visuals unneurotic representation indigo’s improvement crossed India, West Africa and Japan to modern plan studios astir the world. Visitors tin besides research integer maps of past commercialized routes, unrecorded indigo plants, and the pigment’s oxidation process successful the Indigo Alchemy Lab.
Sangita Jindal, Chairperson of JSW Foundation, addressing the artists and creation enthusiasts astatine the Blue Futures accumulation astatine Hampi Art Lab adjacent the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Hampi successful Vijayanagara territory of Karnataka. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
“Our purpose was to make a abstraction wherever indigo is experienced arsenic a living, evolving communicative and not arsenic a static artefact. Through installations, sensory environments and workshops, we invitation audiences to rediscover indigo’s transportation to land, labour and creator expression,” said curator Meera Curam.
The accumulation volition proceed till aboriginal 2026, accompanied by artist-led workshops, block-printing demonstrations, movie screenings and nationalist talks.
Spread crossed 9 acres, Hampi Art Labs – an inaugural of the JSW Foundation, the societal improvement limb of the US$23-billion JSW Group – combines studios, galleries, gardens and creator residencies successful a scenery that mirrors the grandeur of the Vijayanagara practice site. Hampi Art Labs seeks to span section craftsmanship with modern creation and to make taste linkages crossed the Global South done residencies and collaborations.
