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World Map Jaali Wall

Art Installation – Wall

Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi

World Map Jaali is a wall installation depicts India’s relationship in an International context, appropriate for the interiors of the Ministry of External Affairs building in Delhi. The brief was to design an art installation, which has an Indian identity and represents India’s relationship with the rest of the world using craft. The installation is a graphical representation of the world map using brass inlay craft on intricate jaali patterns. The installation has Jaalis that are completely handcrafted in Sheesham wood with brass inlay. The art piece is 6.5 meter tall and 4.5 meter wide.

For world map jaali, a floral jaali was crafted in different sizes for each of the continent, while India is highlighted with polished brass. The challenge was to achieve the precision of the shapes of the continent with wood and do brass inlay on the border. Generally brass inlay is done on smaller sizes, and hence to achieve a seamless continuous wooden jaali’s which are more than 2 meter wide, it took a lot of production research and planning to achieve no visible joints in the wooden jaali’s. The main challenge was to do brass inlay on such large surfaces. The craftsmen working with us on the project were very experienced but had only worked on doing brass inlay for small objects. An art installation requires a lot of technical planning and visualization of challenges at every stage from concept, sampling, structural detailing, production and installation on site. The other challenge was to do the structural detailing to manage the weight of the jaali’s on the wall.

The brief was to design an art installation, which has an Indian identity and represents India’s relationship with the rest of the world using craft.

Keywords

Interiors, Art Installation, Ministry of External Affairs, Delhi, Brass, Inlay, Handmade, Craft, Sheesham, Jaali, Map, Graphic

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