Debating tactile engagements

Revathi Kamath, Kamath Design Studio

- Suprio Bhattacharjee

“So you wanted a white box?”

We live in a country where our very relationship with the nation’s original inhabitants is contentious. Labelled ‘tribals’ by colonial settlers and socially victimised by the caste-system, these communities have, over thousands of years, evolved a way of life that stems from a ‘one-ness’ with the land and the direct experience of the life-world[1]. This engenders a collective consciousness, a ‘living heritage’ that is manifest in their daily rituals, their social customs, and the objects and patterns that enliven their everyday — what we label as their ‘art’.