BA (Hons) Ceramics 2005 |
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Renu Diwan Tel 029 20616622 |
The central character in my narrative is the 'dabba' through which I re-live the journey of my Tiffin from my mother's kitchen to my workplace. The 'dabba' or 'tiffin' (originally mid-day lunch) is a vertical stack of containers around 3-5, each containing one cooked item like rice, chapattis, dal, vegetables etc. making a standard Indian lunch. The most effective way to tell this story was to combine ceramic materials with screen printing, photography and collage as an integral part of the form and to convey the exciting, colourful and highly organised journeys of the dabbawallas undertaken on foot, bicycle, hand-cart and train. I have encapsulated the dabbawallas' daily journeys through the metaphor of repetitive process of mould making and slip casting. I have predominantly used a red palette on my imagery as red is an auspicious colour in Indian culture. Some images are deliberately faded as these symbolise blurred memories. My tea cups provide the common link between the past and present culinary delights. |
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Having spent almost half of my life in Mumbai (Bombay), I have always been fascinated by the ingenuity and resourcefulness of the ordinary people there to earn a living. One group of people, the 'dabbawallas' (tiffin carriers) bring back happy memories of home cooked hot lunches at work, made possible by this unique institution of Tiffin Carriers and I wanted to capture their spirit and their daily journeys into a narrative in ceramics. 
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