Bricolage


ABOUT:  

In the ‘Savage Mind’, Claude Levi Strauss uses the word bricolage to describe characteristic patterns of mythological thought. Bricolage is the skill of using whatever is at hand and recombining them to create something new. Levi Strauss compares the working of the engineer and the bricoleur. The Bricoleur who is the “savage mind” works with their hands in devious ways, puts preexisting things together in new ways and makes do with whatever is at hand. As opposed to the bricoleur is the engineer, who is the ‘scientific mind’, the true craftsperson who deals with projects in their entirety, considering the availability of materials, and creating new tools. Levi Strauss argues that mythology works more like the Bricoleur whereas modern western rationality works more like the engineer. He suggests that the engineer creates a totalizing system which has a degree of permanence whereas the Bricoleur is more spontaneous and creates fragmented, more temporal, impermanent systems. 

This course aimed at drawing an image of the Bricoleur to build the contours of a deep practice that engages in reading, acquaintance with works of art and architecture and making art/architecture/ design works.

Course:-

The philosophy of Kinstugi(金継ぎ, "golden joinery"), is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. This process symbolises a reconciliation with the flaws and accidents of time reinforcing some big underlying themes of Zen. As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise. The essence of Kintsugi is the practice of focusing one's  intention on life’s hidden beauty and power. Transformative power. Though the original form of the vase has been forever damaged, through Kintsugi’s alchemy, the essence of its beauty, not only survives, it thrives. It is a way of living that embraces every flaw and imperfection.

The overall idea was to Identify and develop a practice and look and understand the city through this 'Idea of Repair'. 

Derives_ A way to get lost in the essence of the city and look at it through a Bricoleur's lens. It is a great tool to understand the city, your relation with the city and also to develop your Bricoleur's practice. I went to a few derives in Mulund and explored the city with an altogether different lens, looking at it through stories, and people _ how the history of the place, and the people and the current life shapes and adds in to what is called "The essence of the city."

I explored a unique way to express my stories, which is through illustrated cards, which make cards with a few illustration on them that actually convey my stories without any words. Like a game of DIXIT CARDS.  

I still remember my childhood days, where instead of the chaos in there there was luscious green grass, so dense that it could hide a human. I and my brother used to play hide and seek there. The railway station was still there but it was scarcely crowded. These buildings and restaurants you see now are not even 50 years old. The Mulund market evolved at a slow pace yet dynamically. My father opened there a Udupi snacks centre and bar there. It was one of the very first hotel kind of pop up to exist in Mulund. But yet the local Agri and Kolhi community had their dominance there. It made us difficult to work there sometimes. But yet, still living here 50 years later, working in the same place. I kind of learned to work with the flow of this city, the more affinity you give to the place and people, the more you receive sometimes with a reward!

Our neighbour Sheik kaka used to work in the chemical department in the factory. You know the Nirmal lifestyle mall near, LBS road, which is shutting down now, back then it used to be a Chemical factory, in fact, all the areas in the outskirts of Mulund, mainly Mulund west were industrial areas. Even the present-day Johnson's & Johnson's company was an industry back then. We used to live in a Baithi chawl that followed a Pagdi system. All the people and mill workers used to live in these chawls built near the factories. That is why the housing type you see in Mulund West was majorly Chawls. 

I was a teacher at the Municipal school, the one you see at the junction of Mithaghar Road. I worked there for almost 52 years, ever since I came here after my marriage in 1966. I was just 20, and I already had my B.Ed Diploma. Your Anna was very supportive of me doing a job. Many of my students used to come from a small nearby village on the outskirts of Mulund East. The community that lives there are the aboriginals. They work on the creeks (known as Mulund-Airoli creeks) and are called Agris. That is one of the reasons why they are a dominant community here. Many years ago, they used to own the Mithaghar area, but as development crawled its way in with the migrants, the aboriginals were slowly pushed to the periphery of Mithaghar and now they are practically considered a separate community. 

About the DIXIT CARDS:- 

Dixit (Latin: dixit, Latin pronunciation: [ˈdiːksit], "he/she/it said"), is a French card game created by Jean-Louis Roubira, illustrated by Marie Cardouat, and published by Libellud. Using a deck of cards illustrated with dreamlike images, players select cards that match a title suggested by the "storyteller", and attempt to guess which card the "storyteller" selected. The game was introduced in 2008. Dixit won the 2010 Spiel des Jahres award.[1] Each player starts the game with six random cards. Players then take turns being the storyteller, who looks at the six images in their hand. From one of these, the storyteller makes up a sentence or phrase that might describe it and says it out loud, without showing the card to the other players.[2] The storyteller's aim is to provide a description that is ambiguous enough that not all other players will recognize the card from their description, yet relevant enough that some will.[3] 

If all players find the storyteller's card

If no players find the storyteller's card

If only one player, but no other players, have found the storyteller's card