Bijoy Jain

AT FONDATION CARTIER

- Komal Sharma

Bijoy Jain's studio in Mumbai is a courtyard home in the Byculla neighbourhood of Mumbai. Behind a discreet gate is a long treelined corridor with his home on one side and neighbours' homes on the other, all doors and windows opening into this communal corridor. Through another bamboo door, one arrives at a wide, open, voluminous courtyard in the middle with work spaces lined along the periphery. Desks, chairs, cabinets; arrangements of found rocks; vats of indigo, bowls of bright ferrous pigments, drawings, paintbrushes; books, more books; people weaving a chair so adeptly, effortlessly, with threads of muga silk; Jain's beautiful black dogs running around; and the monsoon pouring down on that day of September, loud and relentless-everything belongs, everyone rather, animate or not, found or made, like parts of a civilization, an ecosystem, an atmosphere that is Studio Mumbai.

Almost a decade ago, Hervé Chandès, artistic managing director of Fondation Cartier, had come across a photograph of Studio Mumbai in a magazine. "It fascinated me. It was rich with possibilities, of creation, of people, of aesthetic, of invention. I kept the magazine nearby, like a talisman, to meet again sometime," he told us over a phone call from Paris.

Eventually, in March 2022, the Fondation Cartier formally invited Bijoy Jain to create and curate an exhibition at the Fondation's Jean Nouvel-designed building. Titled Breath of an Architect, it opened on 9 December 2023 and goes on till 21 April 2024.