INCENSE
Dressed in a Chinese short coat, with a folding fan and brocade bag in his hand and a small sachet hanging around his waist, Wu Qing is a Shanghai-based former interior designer with a doctorate of Fine Arts in Archaeology and expertise in the incense rituals of the Song dynasty. “As early as the pre-Qin period, Chinese people used incense for medical and edible purposes. Craftsmen in the Han dynasty even mixed Chinese pepper with building materials and used it to paint the walls along with mud.” These images capture Wu’s process of “playing with” incense. As the smoke rises from burning incense, it only takes a little while to fill the room with fragrance. The blended aroma of wood materials is original and clear, and the calming, familiar smell makes one feel as if they are hidden somewhere in the mountains. “The fragrance carries memory. When you enter a fragrant atmosphere, you find that the distance between our ancestors and us is not as large as imagined,” says Wu.
PHOTOGRAPHER JONATHAN LEIJONHUFVUD WRITER CHEN SANGYU STYLIST JUDY ZHU ASSISTANTS CHEN YIYU, JIN JIAYU
CULTURE
This story is from the January - February 2021 edition of AD Architectural Digest India.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the January - February 2021 edition of AD Architectural Digest India.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
The Curator
AD’s Art issue would be incomplete without an essay on Peggy Guggenheim, the philanthropist and visionary who was collecting through the war years, and whose home-turned-museum in Venice has one of the most important holdings of modern art in the world.
Raw Mango Agama
TEXTILES HAVE BEEN INTEGRAL TO THE STORYTELLING AT AD IN PRINT. IN A NATURAL STEP AHEAD, FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, THE AD DESIGN SHOW THIS YEAR OPENED WITH A GARMENT PRESENTATION. THE MOOD, THE MUSIC, THE PEOPLE, THE TEXTILES EVERYTHING WAS MAGIC.
JAIVEER JOHAL'S CHENNAI HOME IS
FLANKED BY THE ADYAR RIVER ON ONE SIDE AND THE BAY OF BENGAL ΟΝ THE OTHER, AND ANCHORED IN A SEA OF ART AMIDST WHICH HE LIVES IN THIS BOLDLY DESIGNED ONEBEDROOM APARTMENT
D
IN A CHARMING ART DECO BUILDING IN MUMBAI'S HERITAGE PRECINCT, WITH THE BUSTLE OF OVAL MAIDAN ACROSS THE ROAD, COLLECTOR DARA MEHTA LIVES AMONG A STAGGERING COLLECTION OF ART IN A STARKLY MINIMAL HOME THAT IS MEDITATIVE AND RESTRAINED IN ITS INTERIORS DESIGNED BY NETERWALA AIBARA INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE AND ALL FOR THE ART TO SHINE THROUGH.
WELCOME TO THE AMINS BARODA HOME
THE CITY OF BARODA-NOW CALLED VADODARA IS INTRICATELY LINKED TO THE HISTORY OF MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY ART IN INDIA. REFLECTING THIS JOURNEY IS MALIKA AND CHIRAYU AMIN'S ANCESTRAL HOME AND THEIR INCREDIBLE COLLECTION OF ART.
60 Years of Chemould
In telling the story of Gallery Chemould, Jerry Pinto writes a short history of art in the city
Bijoy Jain
AT FONDATION CARTIER
Treasure Hunt at Alessi
Cristina Kiran Piotti visits the Alessi Museum in Omegna, Italy, and discovers India-inspired creations in the archive of an iconic Italian design house.
What's New at the Art Fair
Design gets a special space at this year’s India Art Fair, with the iconic Carpenters Workshop Gallery curating a section along with Ashiesh Shah.
The Life and Work of KG Subramanyan
In the year of the artist's birth centenary, Mortimer Chatterjee remembers this boundless creative genius across the histories of art, craft and design.