স্থিতি / Objects in Conversation

Objects in Conversation is an encounter.

A gathering of ideas suspended in anticipation, the exhibition invites its audience to imagine designed objects in dialogue. Positioned as protagonists and gathered across generations, the objects recount stories of a collective journey in defining a Bangladeshi design identity. Organized around four thematic inquiries, the exhibition reveals investigations about materiality and climate, reductionism and resources, heritage and modernity, and a philosophical and spiritual quest for the collective self. Spanning fifty years of designed objects post-independence, the pieces bear witness to their social, economic, and cultural contexts, responding to a society in transition. Illuminating individual and collective aspirations, inquiries, and debates, the collection of objects acts as a mirror reflecting a cultural ethos. Encountering the objects creates an opportunity for us as the audience to re-examine our current relationship to our created environments while reflecting on the objects’ inherited and embodied values.

In ‘Objects in Conversation,’ Bangladeshi design emerges with ingenuity, humility, and restraint. The Bangladeshi approach is uncomplicated - a simple respect for resources and people in one of the most densely populated places in the world. The objects reveal an acknowledgment and celebration of limited available materials and production techniques, poetically translated into a design challenge and opportunity. Materiality is considered with temporality and climate, designed to weather with the seasons, and age with patinas of use. Production can be considered primarily as a relationship, where innovations occur through the collaborative process between designer and maker.

To reflect on the designs and understand the objects requires a reflection on the various contexts from which they were born. We invite the audience to participate in the encounter, which is also a celebration of a shared and continuing journey.

Curatorial Team:

Diane Rhyu Taylor
Bishwajit Goswami
Ulrike Fellner

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This exhibition tells us that every architect is an artist, and every artist may be an architect.

We have architects and artists coming together, their objects in very meaningful conversation with each other. Objects also exist independently within a system, like language itself; you can identify linguistic elements, but they all have relationships. Mixture is important. 

Manzoorul Islam
Academic, Cultural critic, Writer