Bricolage As Method

Allied design

Mentor : Rupali Gupte

Bricolage is the skill of using whatever is at hand and recombining them to create something new. It is the construction or creation of a work from a diverse range of things that happen to be at hand.

In order to understand the methods of working of a Bricoleur, various works were referenced by looking at the aesthetics, mechanics, politics and spatiality of bricoleur’s practices along with the biography of the bricoleurs through examples in Art and architecture. Thus building a Bricolage diary to store all the references we come across during the process .

Simultaneously we started recognizing our own practices of repair or had a chance of repair.

Going on derives through the city as Bricoleur helps in identifying other bricoleurs and their practices. Documenting their practices, and forms of inhabitation in the bricoleur diary. We started the process of making a bricoleur by building a diary for ourselves that responded to our practice of repair. The dairy was a companion everywhere from note taking in class to sketches of derives to referencing and diagraming.

Going on derives through the city as Bricoleur helps in identifying other bricoleurs and their practices. Documenting their practices, and forms of inhabitation in the bricoleur diary.

Creating a space for our creative works to come together : The Garden

For all our collaborative works to come together we discussed the idea of how the space would look and there immerged the idea of a garden. We looked at and spoke about gardens in class, and each student's interpretation of them inspired the development of brief, two-minute thinking drawings. We spoke about how the area would appear in order for all of our joint projects to come together

What is a garden?

Where in class we looked at and discussed the idea of garden and what it means for each student which led to the creation of small two minutes thinking sketches.

Building one’s own practice of bricolage we developed this idea of an exquisite corpse coming together in the form of a garden through 5 tropes Body, Homely and Unhomely, The Ghostly House, Feast and Library . The trope I worked on was the Homely and Unhomely.

Homely and the Unhomely

Homeliness is about intimacy, comfort, memories and associations. But what does it mean to be unhomely? What is the feeling of being unhomely? The idea of unhomely is explored by creating an experience of an uncanny, unfamiliar, uncomfortable ghostly looking home. By creating a surreal, weird and uncomfortable home environment, the idea of the unhomely is explored. I also read The Architectural Uncanny by Anthony Wilder. The book had some horror and mysterious stories written by Hoffman, the explanation of feeling of uncanny by Sigmund Freud, and many more.

Library

The trope of a library explores the setting up of a library through methods other than a bookshelf or a cupboard. The books hanging from the clothesline with the help of the clothespin bring outiture comes from bricoleurs chairs and stools which are these modified and repaired pieces that people across the city make for themselves for various purposes- in shops, to occupy on the street, etc.

Each piece of furniture that you see lying stray on the street has its own social life and evolution of being used and re-paired by multiple users. In shops, people have their own ways of making and re-making chairs, stools with whatever is available at hand.

We mended and repaired old, discarded chairs and a stool by adding on prosthetic pieces that completely changed the nature of the furniture thus giving them a new life.

Feast

Hearing the feast one imagines the food of the great fusion snacks and variety of food available in the fast food chains, but one doesn't look at the lens of culture and variety of food it provides and its spaciality in shaping the city. Extending these delicacies of various cultures present in the city, understanding the pre-existing which have been hidden or suppressed by the today's quick meals which rather came from pre-existing of these meals itself and instead left as ghosts left wandering in the city forgetting its mere existence. Curating back all these culture and enthinity from different parts of the city and bringing them together in a manner which is spontaneous and fragmented, more temporal and impermanent systems. In a way they have never been existed or experienced before and experiencing the city through this feast. Enjoying the culture which is shaping the city and its life ever since.

The Ghostly House

The installation is an attempt to create an uncanny house with the everyday house objects. The walls and roof provide protection and create intimacy, but how does a house feel without walls and a roof which doesn’t protect one? The absence of walls eliminate the idea of homeliness but the window, photo frames and mirror bring back an indirect presence or say association of walls. The kitchen objects were placed on stands which emerged from the ground. A concrete mattress and commode were also awkwardly placed in the house installation. What makes an house homely is not only the space but the objects, memories, associations, materiality, family, friends and weather. So the basic idea was to rearrange or rethink the materiality and positioning of these daily objects.