BE OPEN launched the worldwide project ‘Made in…’ to encourage artisans around the world to explore alternative ways of using traditional skills and keeping them alive. The foundation involved a new generation of makers and designers, as well as students, academics and retail industry professionals, to develop the subject, exploring where and how our diverse cultures can meet and how to take traditional skills into the future, through innovation and technology.
The journey of discovery began in India, where, from the time of the Mughals to the present day Indian craftsmen had been commissioned to carve and inlay marble, wood and stone, to weave in silk and to mould in clay.
‘Made in India. Samskara’ exhibition showcased furniture and tableware, textiles and jewels that revealed an imaginative reinterpretation of traditional craft skills by contemporary Indian designers. A range of pieces by twenty three designers were installed in the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts in New Delhi, in a bespoke space created by the architect Anupama Kundoo. She brought symbolic elements of nature and the outdoors into the interior of the high-profile brand store.
Dedicated graphic was designed to create a unified way of presenting the conceptual “Made in … India. Samskara” international brand. It referred to the idea of refining, which is what the project aimed to do by re-positioning locally made, handcrafted goods to give them a global appeal, rather than purely displaying the latest in contemporary Indian craft.
