interview: bijoy jain infuses fragments of studio mumbai into fondation cartier exhibition

Studio Mumbai: The Breath Of An Architect at Fondation Cartier

From December 9, 2023 to April 21, 2024, the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris invites Indian architect Bijoy Jain, founder of Studio Mumbai, to create an exhibition that serves as a haven for quiet contemplation and reverie, engaging in dialogue with Jean Nouvel’s architecture. Delving into the intersections of art, architecture, and materiality, Bijoy Jain’s artistic interpretation of the Fondation Cartier reflects a way of thinking that regards time and movement as fundamental elements in spatial creation.

Jain is dedicated to forging an architecture that finds expression through the elements of water, air, and light, harmonized with the rhythm of human breath. In this showcase titled The Breath of an Architect, Jain collaborates with Chinese artist Hu Liu and Turkish-Danish ceramic artist Alev Ebüzziya Siesbye. Through their respective creative processes, all three practitioners become intertwined in the realms of gesture, materiality, time, movement, and space, sharing a common sensibility and ethos. The semantics of form emerge organically through an intuitive dialogue with the immediate environment by these artists.

For deeper insights into the exhibition, designboom spoke with Associate Curator Juliette Lecorne, who collaborated closely with Bijoy Jain. Lecorne sheds light on the partnership between Fondation Cartier and the renowned architect, the exhibition’s design, and the pivotal role of time and movement in shaping the spatial experience. Explore the full interview below.

Prima Materia, 2023, hut made of bamboo frame tied with cotonstring and assembled with handwoven bamboo panels | photo © Ashish Shah

Interview with associate curator Juliette Lecorne

designboom (DB): Can you tell us more about the exhibition at Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain? How did the invitation to create an exhibition come about?

Juliette Lecorne (JL): We have been wishing to work with Bijoy Jain for a long time. He came several times to the Fondation, and we offered him a sort of ‘carte blanche’ as we have been doing through our programming for several decades, inviting international architects to present solo exhibitions showcasing their practice (Junya Ishigami, Jean Nouvel, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and more.

The idea was to offer the audience the possibility to discover Studio Mumbai’s singular and sensitive architectural practice and build a dialogue with Jean Nouvel’s building. Bijoy responded with a total creation, specially realized for the occasion.

sculptural elements made of stone, cow dung and lime | image © Neville Sukhia

DB: The exhibition is said to offer ‘a space of quiet contemplation and reverie, in dialogue with Jean Nouvel’s building’. In what ways does the space respond to the museum’s existing architecture?

JL: In our very first conversations, the two first words that came up were stillness and silence. Bijoy Jain has spontaneously offered to create a space of lull, embracing Jean Nouvel’s building transparency with an in-and-out perspective, just like a human breath: in and out of our body. This idea is embedded in the title of the exhibition, Breath of an Architect. Bijoy Jain created a specific installation echoing the building without altering the original architecture—no walls were constructed, and no scenography was involved.

1 Karvi panel; 2 sculptural elements in stone, cow dung and lime; 2 Tazia; 1 tar object | image © Neville Sukhia

DB: What role do time and movement play in Bijoy Jain’s work?

JL: From what I observe, time is consubstantial to his practice. First conceptually, as an architect, he sees the physical world we inhabit as a palimpsest of our cultural evolution. Humanity moves through a landscape in constant evolution, whose successive writings are intertwined. Secondly, the matter and material he uses are only preindustrial, revealing the specific skills of artisans that work with time.

Karvi panels (bamboo/cow dung/jute, thread/lime/pigment); 1stone animal covered with lime; 3 handmade wooden flower vases; 1 tar object on a base | photo © Solène Dupont Delestrain

DB: For the exhibition, Bijoy Jain has invited Chinese artist Hu Liu and Turkish-Danish ceramic artist Alev Ebüzziya Siesbye. Can you tell us more about this collaboration?

JL: On a suggestion of Hervé Chandès, co-curator of the exhibition and artistic managing director of the Fondation Cartier, Bijoy was invited to dialogue with Hu Liu and Alev Ebüzziya Siesbye, not necessarily for an aesthetic relationship but mostly for their ethos and way of making things. They both share the same importance for the ritual mastery of gesture, resonance, and dialogue with material; they share the same ethos and posture.

Over the years, Alev Ebüzziya Siesbye has perfected an intense dialogue with material through ritual mastery of gesture. Rigor, repetition, and patience are marks of quality for this artist who, from the beginning, found inspiration in the cultures of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Anatolia. In this dialogue with clay, Alev emphasizes the importance of water as a basis for erecting earth, just as in architecture. Bijoy Jain presents Alev Ebüzziya Siesbye’s weightless pieces on a plinth made from miniature hand-fired bricks. It is also a dialogue of a different earth.

Hu Liu’s monochrome black drawings are created using graphite, repeating iterations of the same movement, line by line, to reveal the essence of natural elements: the grass caressed by the wind, the rolling of the waves, or the silhouette of the branches of a tree. This iterative process is common to Studio Mumbai in their architectural research.

view from the Studio Mumbai, Saat Rasta Houses, Mumbai, India | photo © Neville Sukhia

DB: How do you hope visitors will experience and interact with the exhibition space?

JL: From our conversations, we hope that the visitors can experiment with this space with their senses first, and enjoy wandering in this special landscape, composed of architectural fragments designed by Studio Mumbai. These transient and ephemeral structures present a world both infinite and intimate and transport us to places near and far. Breath of an Architect attempts to give a glimpse, however fleeting, of architecture’s sensorial emanations, the intuitive forces that bind us to the elements, and our emotional relationship with space.

Makaloo’s Dome, made from a bamboo structure, covered with cowhide and lime /Mandala Study, 2023, bird shaped geometric frame of bamboo tied with nistari silk / Lime and red cinnabar/cochineal pigment drawn with silk on granite bench | photo © Ashish Sha

Tazia study, frame structure built from bamboo strips cut and drawn by hand, tied with golden muga silk strings | photo © Ashish Shah

hand-carved stone elements | photo © Ashish Shah

Naza Battu, 2023, terracotta sculptural element, hand moulded and open kiln fired | photo © Ashish Shah

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project info:

name: The Breath of an Architect
architect: Bijoy Jain / Studio Mumbai
in collaboration with: Hu Liu and Alev Ebüzziya Siesbye
associate curator: Juliette Lecorne
location: Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, France
dates: December 9, 2023 – April 21, 2024