In Unsettling

Jugaad is a Hindi term for the practice of quick and improvised solutions. In Unsettling juxtaposes the Jugaad approach of incremental building and repurposing of what is available with the over-processed disposition of formal industrial design. Through the lens of privilege, Tanay Kandpal explores how the material culture of Jugaad responds to industrial design as a failing system incapable of accommodating the unexpected. Working through these tensions between the two modes of creation, recalibrated using their aesthetic vocabularies, culminated in barely self-supporting sculptures devoid of functionality. Embodying the resilience of this material culture rooted in scarcity and ingenuity, and recontextualizing it within the functionless realm of sculpture, places the Jugaad as an attitudinal Indian reality that transcends notions of utility and class.