Ram Sinam on taking ColourNext from an idea to reality

BH: What was the overarching objective of the exhibition design?

RS: Materials and colour impact the way you experience things, so we leveraged both to make the guest experience information. Most people start with a rational concept, so one walks through a certain set of ideas with their mind rather than feeling them at an emotional, instinctive level. Experience precedes everything else. Experience needs to be aligned towards a feeling or an emotion with which you intend to engage the guest. If you don’t provide that rich experience to guests, they won’t be interested. So the idea was to construct a story that would make an impact on the guests’ understanding of the narrative. So, they experience what they see, form an opinion and imbue it with their memories.

BH: How did you envision the different spaces for the exhibit?

RS: Every component was thought through. It began with the thematic discovery as the stories were revealed. Through that came the discovery of the colour, materials, forms and textures. The next step was making all those things come alive in a decor space. We designed every bit of the ColourNext exhibition this year, right down to the chairs. When you entered, you saw a very composite idea and within that were different experiences.

BH: Was building a cohesive narrative with the individual stories possible?

RS: For the sculpture created for Terra, the Colour of the Year, and its peripheral environment, we gave it a very strong visual quality. You walk in through the installation at one end and come out at the other. Terra also tied in well with one key trend forecast, ‘Soil’. The whole space is in that colour, so it all looked like one big family of ideas. The objective was to create a seamless, inviting space, meant to invoke ideas of homecoming, being cocooned in nature.

BH: Were any of the stories more of a challenge than others?

RS: As a theme, we found Indofuturism difficult to understand— to visually and intellectually imbibe the theme—in the context of re-articulating it into plausible decor and product ideas. AI was a point of beginning in that the key inspirations came from the AI-generated gaming landscape. We formulated two key contrasting visual cues that became the defining character of the theme—western-inspired retro-futuristic visual forms, and typical Indian mahals, havelis and busy streets (as backdrops) to stage, fashion, decor and product ideas with colourful Indian crafted techniques.

Another one that proved a challenge was ‘Into the Deep’. While we had the earliest idea for it, the story’s execution was super-complicated. We were looking at various layers of woven fabrics in different textures and colours. Just to weave one surface was extremely time-consuming; we needed to weave 40 layers of fabric. Then there were numerous discussions about how to hang them, which layers go where, where should we max out density, is the density enough. The lighting too was important. There were only two vendors in the entire country who had what we needed. So yes, it was incredibly challenging to put up.