The Exhibition

The exhibition was essentially an investigation into the presence & role of grids in Indian culture, with a focus on Jain scriptures. The aim of the exhibition was to underline a strong link between Graphic Design and Indian Design definition and to highlight the possibility of evolving a strong, indigenous graphic language that could speak eloquently its own vocabulary while adhering to the predominantly western principles that form the current bulwark of modern design education, principles that tend to ignore the indigenous aspects so evident in indigenous grid structures. The Indian cultural heritage and its various manuscripts are good examples of the existence of an alternative that could lend variety and perspective to current curricula. Archiving, digitization, and publicity for these alternatives to the global trends would probably help propagate the design sensibilities that could eventually grow into our own design language which was the core idea behind the exhibition.

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The Collaborators

Indira Gandhi National Centre for Art - IGNCA

The IGNCA is India’s foremost resource centre for written, oral and visual materials related to Indian art. Through diverse programmes of research, publication, training, creative activities and performance, the IGNCA seeks to place the arts within the context of the natural and human environment. The fundamental approach of the Centre is all its work will be both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary.

National Manuscript Mission- NMM

The Mission is an autonomous organisation under the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, established to survey, locate and conserve Indian manuscripts, with an aim to create a national resource base for manuscripts, for enhancing their access, awareness, and use for educational purposes, creating bibliographic databases of Indian manuscripts along with their conservation and preservation.

B.L Institute of Indology

The Bhogilal Leherchand Institute of Indology, a premier Institution of International repute, was first started at Patan (North Gujarat) in the year 1980, to sponsor and promote research in Jainology/Indology and other aspects of Indian culture. The academic aim of the Institute is to initiate, organize and give a fill-up to research in Indological subjects in general and Jainological projects in particular.

Establishing partnerships for information exchange

  • Collection of Sri Dev Kumar Jain, Oriental Research Institute, Aara, Bihar, MRC, MCC of National Mission for Manuscripts
  • Collection of Sri Aklank Shodh Sansthan, Kota, Rajasthan, MCC of National Mission for Manuscripts
  • Collection of Sri Kunda Kunda Jnanpitha, Indore, Madhya Pradesh (MP), MRC, MCC of National Mission for Manuscripts
  • The Barmer Boys -Combining artifact display and performativity