Exhibition Design
The Bauhaus Foundation Dessau hosts an annual fellowship on-site at the UNESCO World Heritage Building. In 2017, was selected to join a small, international team of design fellows to research the history of German/Indian design discourses in the 1960s, and design a teaching exhibition for the Bauhaus Foundation in Dessau. We worked closely and collaboratively with the Bauhaus curator, Dr. Regina Bitner. As a group, we traveled all over Germany and to Ahmedabad, India to learn about the people, their stories, and the resulting objects that are in the canon of design history. We wrote a book about it — published by Spector Books.
About the exhibition
“The India Lounge”, or the 24/42 chair was co-designed by the Swiss-German designer Hans Gugelot and the Indian Designer Gajanan Upadhyaya at the National Insitute of Design in Ahmedabad. India, in 1968. Using the original dimensions of the chair as a blueprint for an exhibition structure, our team of seven designed a “teaching” exhibition for the Bauhaus Foundation Dessau and the hfg Ulm School of Design, on transcultural design dialogues between India and Germany in the 1960s.
Concept and Execution:
Marleen Grasse, Gwendolyn Kulick, Oscar Kwong, Claudia Martinez, Marlene Oeken, Pedro Silva, Kathrin Rutschmann
Supervisor:
Dr. Regina Bittner
Location:
Bauhaus Foundation Dessau
Exhibition view — working with the confines of the Bauhaus as a World Heritage site. Free-standing structures, only.
The audio played Jawaharlal Nehru's speech: 'Tryst with Destiny'
A replica of the chair by designer Gajanan Upadhyaya we researched. The chair is a chair — but it's also a symbol of modernist influences on India in the 60's and its role in geopolitical and social discourses.
Hans Gugelot projector showing photos of India by Charles and Ray Eames.
A 'lota' from India with Charles and Ray Eames quote projected on it.
Exhibition text details on low-table. the table is 12" in height — the same height as the chair we researched. Our goal: make the user think about the role/function of furniture.
Exhibition materials, details
Quote from Saloni Mathur communicating the complexity of the object-discourse at the time.
A copy of the rare design today in America and Europe Catalog, by MoMa. The exhibition traveled through India showing modernist objects.
Images of a fan Hans Gugelot desingned during his time in India (it was very hot).
Images of artisans making a 'lota'.