2021-22 | Allied Studies | Vertical Studio | Dipti Bhaindarkar (Mentor)
Participants : Anjan Kudtarkar, Anupreksha Bakliwal, Ashwini Borkar, Atisha Bhuta, Bharvi Shetye, Helee Doshi, Madhura Patil, Manthan Chandak, Nitisha Parakh, Parth Solanki, Pooja Dalal, Prajwal Deshmukh, Rachit Raj Somani, Riddhi Chavan, Rithik Mali, Ronak Soni, Sanjana Habde, Sanskriti Agrawal, Somesh Nadkarni, Yamini Patil
-Atisha Bhuta, Helee Doshi, Yamini Patil, Dipti Bhaindarkar
Miniatures offer us the possibility to inhabit alternate worlds which are an assemblage of smaller-scaled objects that often resemble or are imagined to resemble a full-size object. Miniatures provide an underlying desire to engage with objects, to arrange and rearrange them to imagine alternate worlds, to construct stories and string narratives. The miniature objects thus become the main actors/characters/ingredients/elements in these worlds which draw on newer connections. While doing these acts, we imagine ourselves to be inhabiting a space around them, or at times within them. As one explores the world through a curious mind, one starts building up territories, journeys, and experiences with these elements. lmaginations build up new meanings and new associations between these discrete objects. Miniatures and their alternative worlds have capabilities to transport people through space to explore what is unknown and what lies beyond. Miniatures are often in relation to the referential scale. Giant sizes make something feel tiny and miniatures make things seem to be giants. This correlation of scales and objects makes these narratives provocative, reflective and exploratory in nature. This course is premised on the argument that conscious alternative worlds created by the assemblage of tiny objects may not only add the possibility of escape, fantasy & alternative worlds but may also provide valuable reflections of current times.
The course worked itself through the method of peer discussions & collaborative working. All participants contributed actively to brainstorm and articulate frameworks to enter the world of miniatures through history until today.
We start knowing about things by questioning them and getting in depth with the concepts through readings, experiences and understandings. “Miniature doesn’t really need to have the literal idea of ‘mini’ in it. It’s semantics has kept evolving over years starting from ‘to illuminate/ rubricate’ then to now ‘small or tiny’ (for which limn was the word). MINIATURE as defined by Webster as a copy or a much-reduced scale or something small of its kind. That is a preconceived public notion of miniatures. We come across mini/small objects very frequently in our everyday life as souvenirs from our travels or just as a set of collections of a person. Most of the time we find them amusing and endearing. People have a strange fascination for these palpable objects. They could also be found in the form of manuscripts, paintings, models, figurines and other art forms as well. However, the vision behind these art forms is very different from the notion of being ‘tiny.’
Miniature Practices were articulate under the following tropes.
Miniature Beyond The Idea Of Scale And Replica
Our entry points were through the lens of scale, however over the course of four weeks through intense peer discussions, readings, and movies we broadened our idea of miniaturisation (a process). A process that helps you to either collapse, condense or challenge the idea of time, realities/facts from the everyday.
It broadens our imagination by helping us see the world from different optical lenses and enables us to bring our imaginative/alternate worlds that the viewers can also delve into. Layering, detailing and curating plays an important role in the process of miniaturisation.
Way Forward
The process of miniaturisation helps in creating worlds of one’s imaginations and allows people to inhabit these worlds. The act of inhabiting these worlds of imagination lies in the process of visualizing, constructing and materialising them. It engages the maker a lot more in the process of making and demands the maker to keep making more of these objects in order to continue living their world of fantasy, and of escape. It is the ‘lack’ that one feels/ finds in their everyday which makes miniaturisation a helpful process to engage with.
As humans we are habitual in the act of dreaming, trying to fulfill our desires of escape from the mundane routine of our life. It is this act of dreaming and dwelling in it that keeps us alive. Miniaturisation helps us in the act of dwelling our dream and giving it a physical form. It gives us a frame, a scale with which we can work and also enables us to shift our optic lens to that of a bird or of an ant or maintain the same as that of a human, the choice is ours. It lets us zoom in 10 to the power of x without necessarily using a device for it and makes our imagination tangible.
It has the scope to increase the power of imagination by blurring the lines between fantasy and reality. It challenges the realities of every day, challenges the eye level/ optic lens with which we (human) view our immediate surroundings and becomes a tool to portray multiple realities simultaneously. Layering of varied ideas and concepts in miniaturisation becomes very critical. Details is it’s essence and holds the idea concept and the object together. And it is in these challenges lies it’s future scope to invite people from all walks of life and adapt it as a tool in their practice of seeing, questioning, knowing, telling, listening, organizing and managing.
Model making (virtual/ physical) in this light is then just not reduced to the idea of it being scaled down to 50, 500 or scaled up to 10:1, 20:1. The act of making the model engages the craftsmen to think of it’s spatiality much more rationally and in all 3 dimensions. It involves all the senses of the maker. It represents the idea/ concept of the maker and communicates to the viewer at a manageable scale and lens. Miniaturisation helps to collapse a sensorium into a box, cabinet of objects, a documentary (Memory Calendar, Memory box) The process gives entire control onto your hands and makes you the creator of it’s world. This course would further investigate through the idea of making Architectural Models.
This course was an attempt to open up the idea of miniatures, its premise through history and further to ask new questions to engage actively with miniaturisation. The method is then developed to focus on the nuances of the in-between worlds which often get left out due to objectification. This course builds twenty miniature worlds by twenty students from the School of Environment and Architecture during their coursework in Allied Studies for the year 2021-22.
You can explore 20 Miniature Worlds which were constructed during this course through our WEBSITE.Posted on September 3, 2021 by SEA
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