Full Circle: Amardeep Behl on the Narrative Experiences in Space
The Virasat-e-Khalsa museum. Photo courtesy: Design Habit
‘We are a living culture, progressing in time and space.’ In the first column of his Full Circle series, Varud Gupta interviews Amardeep Behl on how to tell the narrative of a nation through design and museum space.
Varud Gupta’s Full Circle is a regular column that dives into the arts and crafts of India through interviews with specialists around the country, discussing everything from creations to inspirations.
Welcome my Internet Family to the inaugural episode of Full Circle. This column will take deep dives into the Indian arts through interviews with specialists around the country in various fields of arts, culture, and more, discussing everything from creations to inspirations. My hope is that these tales will provide you, our esteemed Reader, a more critical understanding and analysis of trades that don’t often get the spotlight they deserve.
First up, we have Amardeep Behl, the Founder and Design Director of Design Habit, a studio in New Delhi that aims to push the boundaries of museum experiences and immersive narratives. These could be vague terms, so we’ll have Behl himself help us understand better.
The Chakkar: Describe the nature of your work for someone that might know nothing at all about this field?
Bhel: When I was studying at NID [National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad], one thing that didn’t work for me was our museums. I found them boring, as stones lying in glass. The way school kids would be marched right through them didn’t make sense. As I was growing up in this field of design, I realised that museums could be an unrealised act of space and something that was missing.
So, what I do is create an emotive journey through space. We present, exhibit and engage with histories or memories or preconceptions. Create an act of space through blending theatre, cinema, exhibits, and shows.
Amardeep Behl. Photo courtesy: Design Habit
The Chakkar: When it comes to describing your work, do you prefer Museum Design or Narrative Experience?
Bhel: Narrative, because the Museum in concept and form is something that needs to be redesigned. We have so many stories to explore and understand and we can relive them as coins or textiles. But we continue to make the error of following the ‘British’ method of displaying trophies as our museum. In their museums, they are showing their victories from across the world and making sure no one else can steal them away behind the glass shelves.
But we are a living culture, progressing in time and space. It is a continual journey like our own lives. If you are showing the Gupta Empire through artifacts, yes there is architecture and materials, but it isn’t something that can be showcased or locked up. It needs to be shown with context.
The Chakkar: So how do we do this? Is there a project you have worked on that best brings this to life?
Bhel: The Virasat-e-Khalsa museum [in Anandpur Sahib]. It began with aspirations: to showcase the history of Sikhs and the inception of the Khalsa. The first thing we had to ask ourselves is how to put the story into a space? This when we realised that this experience really had to be emotive and a narrative. One that reflected the palate of human emotions from faith to struggles.
We needed to be transported in time to register that vision. That’s how these stories are best told and an act of space can do that. In India, Sikh history is something continuous. We haven’t left that time behind; we are living it now. Like the peels of onion, coexisting through these periods.
It had to modern, but also local and Punjabi. For people who might know the history but still needed to experience it. The “people of the soil”. Therefore, our presentations and explorations also had to have a new but common language. It had to be our language.
We told the story from everything including the wooden inlays and sculptures and embroidery by craftsmen who hand built sets. And we used technology and multimedia to convey the emotion. From recording songs to ornate exhibits, it is a blending of experiences—a show, an immersion, a feeling, a sensation.
The Chakkar: You mentioned something interesting there: a modern or common language of India. Tell me more about what that means.
Bhel: It’s always been my journey in design. I started in non-digital times. There were designers of local crafts and then the designers of a ‘Western Dream’. Two different veins and approaches. I always wanted to know how does my work become ‘Indian’. How will it be modern but different? What can India offer to this space?
It can’t be just because of heritage. It needed to be dynamic, living, where I could stand proud of the Indian against the International. Virasat-e-Khalsa was one step. Think of songs and poetry. Even Bollywood music is an interesting Indian language which connects the country.
For me it was about stop trying to be India, but be confidence in ourselves. And that will always make us unique. Stop always bringing in the international because we lose our self-empowerment. That’s where it starts, to be self-empowered and think it through as we are Indian.
The Chakkar: Putting together something of this nature, what’s the day-to-day of your work?
“We are a living culture, progressing in time and space. It is a continual journey like our own lives. If you are showing the Gupta Empire through artifacts… it isn’t something that can be showcased or locked up. It needs to be shown with context.”
Bhel: It’s quite mad. It’s difficult to extricate myself. I work with content. I deep dive into the content so much and its very enriching, for example now I’m reading Gandhi not to read him but to transfer him to a space. To do that, I have to surrender to the subject. It can be very intense, swimming and sleeping with all these details. The deep dives that I have to live with.
Content design is so intangible. There’s no formula, each time it’s like starting with scratch. I experience the same anxiety that I had forty years ago. Will I find the solution? Design is not created, it is happening. I stay with the content and space, get absorbed by it until the solution starts to speak. The more you surrender the better it gets. Let it chew you until you rediscover. You need to let go to create. It’s not always a rational process. Something that comes from within, and when it does there is a warm feeling.
[Author’s note: This is life as writer I really resonated with. No matter how much one writes, a blank page is always the scariest thing to gaze upon.]
The Chakkar: How does one get started? Backgrounds of people in this field? Skills or educations required?
Bhel: The work is very multi-faceted. One needs to be open and content savvy. Sure, Exhibition Design is a skill in the right direction but this a space of new opportunity. You need a bit of everything, open to the world of creation. Not a base exactly, but one who can see the vision. One can have a primary discipline, but it’s a zone that is genuinely teamwork based.
The Chakkar: Given this strange intersection, how would you describe the state of the industry? What does the future look like for Museum Design?
Bhel: Good thing is that in India we are finally understanding that the display museum is done. Now the buzz word is ‘Tech’. We are getting tech crazy but then forgetting that tech is also just a tool. Clients like the projection mapping and holographs, but then lose the plot.
India is also finally realising the power of narrative. We know there is a lot to talk about and bring back stories from life. There are so many narratives to be told and India is opening to it—and finally spending money on things.
Virasat-e-Khalsa museum. Photo courtesy: Design Habit
Has India figured the process? And if so, are the people that are doing these processes, figured the vision? I don’t know. We have a habit of jumping into a project reckless. We can jump in, but we really need it to be fundamentally process driven. If not followed, might not have impact of the budget.
There’s a heck of a lot to be done. Just needs to be done well.
The Chakkar: What in your mind is the role of art in society?
Bhel: Museums and art have the same fine line. A responsibility. A lot of art can become self-possessed, but that doesn’t reach out to people, doesn’t have vibrations. Art to him starts in the Self that connects. Some art doesn’t do anything to me—people admire and so will also stand there. It feels like such a sham.
But there is an art that triggers and draws you in. Goes within you and nurtures you. It’s about going within and recreating and making statements, but I think there is a difference of also creating art that can influence and impact other Selves. It has to give back and exchange.
The Chakkar: Last question—any personal inspiration you would like to share?
Bhel: Right now, Walt Disney—he was quite a guy, the envisioning he did. Visionary. As art has to create exchange, design also needs to have a vision. It’s a waste of time making a thing a little better. When a designer becomes a vision, his offerings become huge and the work reflects it.
Think about it: one of the most powerful stories is that of a mouse.
***
Varud Gupta is the award-winning author of the graphic novel Chhotu: A Tale of Partition and Love (Comic Con India “Best Writer”) and the travelogue Bhagwaan Ke Pakwaan: Food of the Gods (Gourmand for “Peace”). His words also frequently appear in National Geographic Traveller and Mint Lounge. He received his bachelors in Finance from New York University. You can find him on Twitter: @Varud Gupta and Instagram: @varudgupta.
