Lucien Dumas -MATANG , Natasha Sumant

All colour comes from a specific place. In Hindi, Rangeela means “colorful.” Inspired by David Bachelors text Chromophobia (Reaktion Books, 2001), Rangeela questions the use of colour in design and the historical power dynamics therein. By utilizing indigenous Indian materials, this collection of furniture as art objects refracts colonial history through art objects.

The creators –– Lucien Dumas, a French architect, and Natasha Sumant, an Indian fashion designer –– envisioned Rangeela as a map of materials and techniques. Their distinct heritages run parallel to the colonial history of the Indian subcontinent and offer a forum for dialogue through the objects.

The materials that first brought the East India Trading Company and other European experiments to the shores of India are at play in the Rangeela collection: the textiles are dyed, using traditional techniques from Assam, primarily with turmeric (yellow-orange), madder root (pink), and annatto seed (orange). The wooden elements are stained with indigo. As an homage to the Mughal tradition of marble carving, the white marble of “Makhrana” is the same that the one used for the construction of the Taj Mahal. All the pieces were made by hand by temple sculptors that pass their ancestral knowledge down from generation to generation. 

The forms in the collection are inspired by everyday objects from Indian life like the Thali (a traditional multi dish plate), the Dhola table (a traditional instrument), the charpoy (the ancestral day bed) ]. The merging of the traditional with the contemporary, the functional and the formal, the ancient and the mundane, European perspective with Indian sensibility, creates the foundation for Rangeela. Just as colonization has forever changed the countries involved, this collection presents conscious creation in the post modern age.