Tanay KandpalIn Unsettling

जुगाड़ (Jugaad) is an Indian colloquialism for an improvised solution, hack and workaround. It is a practice, event process and ethos. Its perception of being a precarious practice stems from the dependence of lower socioeconomic classes on Jugaad to live and work in India.
“In Unsettling” by Tanay Kandpal begins from this perception and is a year-long study and exploration of an entry into the subject from the perspective of privilege and in the context of a Western art school.
The project stems from conversational and visual methods of inquiry in Mumbai. This reveals that in being practised by everyone, Jugaad is fluid in its ownership and cannot be associated with a single class. Thus, it is an attitudinal reality to problem-solving in a material world.
In the art school, the academic program’s requirements are Jugadded to fulfill the need to graduate. The trash of school workshops is repurposed into objects that barely qualify as sculptures. Tying, wedging and balancing to stop the moment they found balance.
Using the utilitarian practice of jugaad to make sculptures as functionless objects ascertains it as an attitude that transcends notions of function and class. Finally in jugaading his way through art school ascertains it as an effective practice.

Photo: Anwyn Howarth