Happening Shopo.in

I'm sure all of us who are active members of the online Indian design community already know of Shopo.in. The dynamic ever expanding online shopping place for all things Indian-handmade-designer. I am really resisting calling it the Indian Etsy, because shopo does have its very own spicy full-colour flavour and identity. And what a pleasure it has been to retail with them. The entire team is as co-operative and prompt and polite as the person at the helm, Krithika Nelson. I have been retailing with Shopo ever since their inception & its been a brilliant experience. And to top that there are 2 new and cool announcements I have to make about them.
One is that they are offering shipping free on all their products!! Like how super cool is that. And the 2nd is that they kick start their Season of Love run up to Valentines day. So don't wait and head straight here to choose and buy something for your Valentine. And here's a look at some of my favourite shops on Shopo.

Saloni Gadgill's She Sells

Kanika Behl's Anek

Parul & Uzma's Kya Cheez Hai

Anisha Singh's Letternote

Carmina Fernandes' Artesania

Abhilasha Jain's Mish Mash design

Karthik and Mahesh's Varnam

And my artnlight :)
I am very inspired by how far Shopo has come in a year & how their team and tribe has been growing. More power to them in 2012!

SOPA, Creativity, You and I

With the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and the protests that followed it, I think our collective minds are thinking of issues around piracy and and just plain copying. And how much to protect the artists who create it and then the companies involved in turning it into a 'property' and thereby trying to strong arm governments to pass bills that could give power to indiscriminately and without process or trial shut down entire websites without as much as a 'by your leave'. I was discussing this with friends and the biggest and most assuring fact that is staring at me straight in the face is that the internet unifies the world and brings a transparency and accountability to government and larger administrative bodies like never before. And this is because of the power and prerogative that the internet bestows on the individual of this generation. Whether it is the Anna Hazare movement in India or the sizable withrawal of support for SOPA in the U.S. It happens when you and I choose to speak for and stand up for what we believe in. It happens when we care enough to do that. The heartening fact is more and more of us are choosing to.

Links for the curious: Why SOPA is dangerous by Chris Heald at Mashable. What is SOPA and how does it work? by Nilay Patel at The Verge. SOPA page at Wikipedia which is available through the blackout period

And click here to read the powerfully worded article which prompted me to write this post.

A few months back we saw another side of the coin with the a lot of us bloggers coming together for the 1st time and discussing blatant piracy and copying in our midst. Copying is sad and it is ugly and the creator certainly feels a pinch when someone takes what you thought of and worse takes it further, reaches more people, either with marketing or affordability. Creativity and ambition don't always go hand in hand and there are many dynamics to this game. At a very superficial level there will always be people who are better at creating and and another lot of people who once they see a possibility are better at taking it further, making it bigger and even better. And there is a place for all of this. And each must and will eventually do what they can. Perhaps the thing to remember here is what you can do is stretchable and elastic and flexible and can grow and expand, evolve and change as you will. Which means a creator can create and market to a whole new level if they wished so, and a vise versa. This I say for myself as much as much as for for anyone reading this. And what I have been clumsily trying to say is put so beautifully here.

"Its not where you take things from - its where you take them to" Jean Luc Godard

Louis Vuitton and India.

When I made the previous post I happened to savour a few treasures from the Louis Vuitton website. Had to share the India chapter from their pages. And I was just plain missing India on my blog. This 1st image is just so enchanting. The pink evening light with the palace shimmering in the backdrop is stuff of every Indophile's dreams. Voyage En Inde:

I am so tempted to go back to my Rajasthan archives. It is next best thing to going to the place.

Window display fun.

Paper art, embroidery, space age, christmas, and no wait - a bloody stuffed elephant, and then the menagerie! Where does all this come together you are wondering. We are talking window displays. If you think this is an extension of harmless window shopping -think again. This is clearly where advertising's cutting edge is at. Yes. The window. And there's some serious art and some even more serious fun happening here.

Beginning with the sane ones

Till here we saw pretty, now begins the fun.
.Macy's Christmas window display @ Union Square was all sci-fci

Giant white and gold paper flowers floating up & PAPER TYPOGRAPHY!! How exciting is this!

Its amazing to see crafty techniques scaled up so effectively.

Below is whatever picture I could take without a million people walking across it. Its was bang at Union Square where we waited for the cable car. JOY IT UP is what the complete window reads like. Take a closer look!

Now for the most dramatic window display of the lot! I was walking past this at the Korean Incheon Airport and stopped dead in my tracks. What was this???!!!

You can read about the 1st ever Louis Vuitton Airport store and the complete dope on why Incheon was chosen.

This led me to the Louis Vuitton website. Click here to experience some sheer cinematic Indian poetry on their website. Completely worth the loading time :)

Chandan Dubey's Photography

I went to the Sublime Chaos of Cities - a photographic exhibition, by Smita Barooah Sanyal, Mala Mukerjee & Chandan Dubey. I went primarily to see Chandan's work and what well invested time it proved to be. I am no critic, but it is not often that you go to an exhibition where the work truly excites you because you have seen something you cant quite figure out, and yet it bewitches and intrigues you. Each frame engaged you, either with form and colour & more often than not with its story. To see Chandan's photographic body of work is to be met with an artist of formidable calibre. It is education and it is inspiration. The photographs of her work in this post are not a patch on the real thing. To stand in front of each frame is to have it speak to you & draw you into the world it comes from.

Clicked by my friend Deeptha Umapathy whose photography I really love.

The series below (of 5 pictures)- which my photo has quite ruined, has to be seen to be believed. We spent the maximum time in front of this, captivated by the story and intrigued by the way it had been captured. This for me had so much power. Chandan Dubey, respect.

Below is a group of some more of my favourites from her work.

Artists whose work you will see at the Sublime Chaos of Cities Exhibition:
"Mala Mukerjee’s works have appeared in many publications in India, UK, Australia and Germany, and on the cover pages of several books published in India and abroad.

Smita Barooah Sanyal is a fine arts photographer and writer. Her works have been exhibited at some of Asia’s most prestigious galleries including Sunjin Galleries (Singapore), Art Mosaic at the Ministry of Culture (MICA, Singapore), The Fringe Club Fotogallerie (Hongkong), Tullika Arts (Mumbai), the Birla Academy (Kolkata), and The Experimental Arts Gallery (IHC, Delhi).

Chandan Dubey is an art curator, writer, and self–taught photographer who has been clicking people, places, and objects for over 15 years. Dubey’s works have been exhibited in galleries in Hong Kong and India, and also appeared in India Today, The Economic Times and Mid–Day, Art Asia Pacific, The South China Morning Post and Time Out Hong Kong." Quoted from here.

All photography and art aficionados, do head to NCPA to catch Chandan's work at the Sublime Chaos of Cities exhibition. Its on till 15th January 2011.

Meeting Megha Punater of Arth and Nitya.

Today I met the super talented Megha Punater of Arth and Nitya. It is always such a treat to meet fellow blogger's whose work you have been following for years, you know each other through your work & yet meeting in reality is so different. And adds so much, of depth and real connection. We met at the atmospheric Pali Hill Cafe and became friends from fellow bloggers. Exchanged little notebooks, discovered we used the same camera & started clicking pictures of the table the way only design bloggers do :)

SanFrancisco by Night

It seems oddly appropriate that as I sit wired and sleepless, I must post pictures of SanFrancisco by night. The mood was festive, it was Christmas time and all the lights were ON. People were buzzing around with their last minute Christmas shopping. Macy's was open till late and decked out in red grandeur. What more could a girl in this city want? For the beautiful night not to end.

Picture credits: Vineeta Nair :)