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Maneklal Gajjar: The Craftsman as a Modern Man
Part of the Series ‘Design History Now’
Speakers
This talk offers glimpses into the archives of Maneklal Gajjar (c.1928-2012), textile block maker and master craftsman from Pethapur, Gujarat. The collection of paper prints of his blocks, books of accounts, correspondence with clients and films and magazine articles on him point to a singularly modern personality who is self-conscious, self-reflexive, and who transcends inherited practices and modes of knowledge.
The materials compel us to reconsider craft and craftsmanship to include design, entrepreneurship, state patronage and the dynamics of public taste and recognize the metabolic inter-relationships between these categories.
This talk is the third in Design History Now, a series exploring design histories that connect to our contemporary moment. The series brings together a selection of speakers who engage with design as a social, political and ecological agent, and consider how design is in turn shaped by these forces. The intention is to offer a vision of design history that is deeply critical in its approach, and in tune with its contemporary relevance and purpose.
In Collaboration with:
Speakers
Suchitra Balasubrahmanyan
Suchitra Balasubrahmanyan studied Visual Communication at the National Institute of Design and is visiting professor at Nirma University, Ahmedabad. Her research interests centre on nineteenth and twentieth-century craft and design in India against the backdrop of decolonization and nationalism. Her recent publications include “Concrete designs for living proposed by Marg Magazine: The materiality and political economy of modernism in India in the early years after independence” (2022); “The India-Pakistan border as site for the production of national identity: Heritage by design” (2021); “Moving away from Bauhaus and Ulm” (2019).
Nia Thandapani
Nia Thandapani’s work focuses on colonial and post-independence design in the Indian subcontinent and the United Kingdom and engages with imperialism’s presence within museum and heritage spaces, and its impact on design practice and its outcomes. She is a co-founder of Chandigarh Chairs, a long-term project that works towards a critical re-evaluation of the history of Chandigarh’s modernist furniture. As part of the collaborative duo Studio Carrom, Nia was a 2019 artist in residence at the William Morris Gallery in London and co-created the exhibition Distant Fellowship which explored and problematised Morris’s connections with South Asia. Nia’s creative work includes artist books, alternative museum guides, exhibitions and installations and experimental zines.
