Interview | Steve Messam – “Art takes the ordinary and makes it extraordinary”

Tell me about the autorickshaw installation which kickstarted the Madras Art Weekend? What was the process of creating it?

I was approached to create something at a historic building. But it was tough — it always is — to find the right edifice and then get permissions for such structures. Normally, I like to come and see the site, and measure it to make sure it all fits. However, since a building was ruled out, I played around with some ideas and devised an alternative plan through renders and modelling. It was during this time that I hit upon the idea of an auto because it is ubiquitous in India. And also because I was familiar with its dimensions.

What I really want to do across all my work is play with colours that are dominant in the local landscape. In a place like India, it’s particularly important to get the colour — its feel and texture — right. But there was the difficulty of capturing it accurately from my studio in England. So, in the UK, I just built in a skin of the spikes that holds the air. I had to do this one myself because my team is building something enormous at the moment. I decided to incorporate local textiles into the installation since I wanted to centre the work in the city; I worked with Chennai tailors on-site for it.

There was a hitch, though: sourcing 60 metres of the same fabric proved impossible from retail stores. Then, we decided to use two colours on a yellow auto: pink fabric for spikes and purple at the bottom to hold them in place, which are hidden from the viewers’ eyes. The inclusion of the auto-rickshaw in the design was a deliberate move to avoid an obvious foreign influence. Drawing inspiration from my observations of how colour is used in different Indian cities, I aimed for a seamless integration that doesn’t overtly reflect my English origin.

The auto installation is located on a street at Shiv Nadar school in Chennai; an auto has to live on the street. It’s a piece that lives for itself. We went out with a photographer to do a recce for the ideal street because it did not have to be a busy one where it’d stall the traffic. It’s in a quiet lane where it feels right; for the people, it doesn’t feel alien because they are familiar with it as a mass mode of transport. When they look at it, they know that this is not a western idea of here. This is actually here. So, it’s not a glamorous street but one where people live and work; there is nothing amazing about it. There’s no grand architecture. It’s really ordinary because the auto is ordinary. In the end, what art does is take the ordinary and make it extraordinary.

How does your research process contribute to creating installations that resonate with the local audience?

I always start with research because I never want to bring a piece to a different place just for the sake of creating something to marvel at in a strange land. You can’t just create a piece and expect it to be well-received or relevant. If you’re going to an audience who are not particularly an art audience, you want them to be able to find a way in, find something that they can relate to. Because sometimes art can be a little bit distant. It’s different in the gallery. But when an artwork is in the public sphere, it’s important that people don’t feel excluded from it.

How do you ensure your installations speak the language of the place where they are exhibited?

The language of the artwork has to speak the language of the landscape it’s created in. In the UK, the rural areas are agricultural. So, you have to speak through artwork that is relevant to an open cultural community; you have to talk in a language they are familiar with. In Chennai, a tiny, temporary installation (a red square with a hole fitted between two cylindrical pillars of the porch) at the art deco building that houses the Raw Mango store (another exhibition at Chennai Art Weekend) integrated well with the surroundings. It’s the whole vision. When you stood back and saw the crowds in the building, the red stood out. But it didn’t stand out in an awkward way. It stood out in a way that it seemed to have a conversation with, and felt like a part of, the place.

Could you explain the ephemeral nature of your installations?

Artist Christo (the late environmental sculptor noted for his outdoor sculptures involving monumental displays of fabrics), whom I greatly admire, would describe art as ephemeral, a moment that existed “once upon a time”. Something happened somewhere. And it transformed the place temporarily. What makes it special for people is the fact that it did happen and that they were there at that moment that the magic happened. It’s about a memory. It’s about a sense of time and place. If you’re there in the place, that’s when the art really makes sense. Although I document everything with photographs, actually being there is the most important thing because you experience it differently when you’re with the art rather than just seeing the picture. By briefly changing the familiar, we get to re-evaluate it, and look at the site/building with fresh eyes, noticing how it sits in its wider environment. While most of these installations go back into my collection, the bigger pieces get recycled because they comprise large amounts of fabric.

You made a debut in India with your installation at the Mumbai Urban Art Festival in January this year. Please tell us about the installation.

It went around a disused colonial building at the gateway to Sassoon Docks. The piece filled the veranda all the way around the entire building. So, it actually wrapped the whole building from end to end; it was 40 metres long. And there were really spikes that came out that were seven or eight metres long. It was done on a short notice. We had about six weeks to do it. I started last year sometime in December, when they contacted me. And we installed it on January 6 this year. Here, the building’s solidity seemed to be in conversation with the fragility of the fabric spikes filled with air.

It is a colonial, crumbling building. But it was beautiful to have learnt about this Portuguese colonial architecture. I learnt about the purpose of the veranda and how people use the upstairs spaces to get the air through. And this is where people mingle and talk. It was fascinating to learn how Portuguese concepts are part of several buildings in Mumbai.

Shireen Quadri is the editor of The Punch Magazine Anthology of New Writing: Select Short Stories by Women Writers.

Steve Messam is known for his ephemeral large-scale site-specific installations — often at historical or architectural relics — that prompt the viewer to reimagine the everyday. Spikes in different shades created with inflatable hand-stitched fabric protrude from his works. The artist was in India for the Madras Art Weekend, where he created an autorickshaw with long inflatable purple spikes shooting out from its interiors. Earlier this year, during the Mumbai Urban Art Festival organised to mark the 150th anniversary of the Mumbai Port Authority, he created a massive fabric art sculpture at Sassoon Dock. Here, he talks about his design process and why his installations are soaked in the flavours of the place where they are created:

Tell me about the autorickshaw installation which kickstarted the Madras Art Weekend? What was the process of creating it?

I was approached to create something at a historic building. But it was tough — it always is — to find the right edifice and then get permissions for such structures. Normally, I like to come and see the site, and measure it to make sure it all fits. However, since a building was ruled out, I played around with some ideas and devised an alternative plan through renders and modelling. It was during this time that I hit upon the idea of an auto because it is ubiquitous in India. And also because I was familiar with its dimensions.

What I really want to do across all my work is play with colours that are dominant in the local landscape. In a place like India, it’s particularly important to get the colour — its feel and texture — right. But there was the difficulty of capturing it accurately from my studio in England. So, in the UK, I just built in a skin of the spikes that holds the air. I had to do this one myself because my team is building something enormous at the moment. I decided to incorporate local textiles into the installation since I wanted to centre the work in the city; I worked with Chennai tailors on-site for it.

There was a hitch, though: sourcing 60 metres of the same fabric proved impossible from retail stores. Then, we decided to use two colours on a yellow auto: pink fabric for spikes and purple at the bottom to hold them in place, which are hidden from the viewers’ eyes. The inclusion of the auto-rickshaw in the design was a deliberate move to avoid an obvious foreign influence. Drawing inspiration from my observations of how colour is used in different Indian cities, I aimed for a seamless integration that doesn’t overtly reflect my English origin.

The auto installation is located on a street at Shiv Nadar school in Chennai; an auto has to live on the street. It’s a piece that lives for itself. We went out with a photographer to do a recce for the ideal street because it did not have to be a busy one where it’d stall the traffic. It’s in a quiet lane where it feels right; for the people, it doesn’t feel alien because they are familiar with it as a mass mode of transport. When they look at it, they know that this is not a western idea of here. This is actually here. So, it’s not a glamorous street but one where people live and work; there is nothing amazing about it. There’s no grand architecture. It’s really ordinary because the auto is ordinary. In the end, what art does is take the ordinary and make it extraordinary.

How does your research process contribute to creating installations that resonate with the local audience?

I always start with research because I never want to bring a piece to a different place just for the sake of creating something to marvel at in a strange land. You can’t just create a piece and expect it to be well-received or relevant. If you’re going to an audience who are not particularly an art audience, you want them to be able to find a way in, find something that they can relate to. Because sometimes art can be a little bit distant. It’s different in the gallery. But when an artwork is in the public sphere, it’s important that people don’t feel excluded from it.

How do you ensure your installations speak the language of the place where they are exhibited?

The language of the artwork has to speak the language of the landscape it’s created in. In the UK, the rural areas are agricultural. So, you have to speak through artwork that is relevant to an open cultural community; you have to talk in a language they are familiar with. In Chennai, a tiny, temporary installation (a red square with a hole fitted between two cylindrical pillars of the porch) at the art deco building that houses the Raw Mango store (another exhibition at Chennai Art Weekend) integrated well with the surroundings. It’s the whole vision. When you stood back and saw the crowds in the building, the red stood out. But it didn’t stand out in an awkward way. It stood out in a way that it seemed to have a conversation with, and felt like a part of, the place.

Could you explain the ephemeral nature of your installations?

Artist Christo (the late environmental sculptor noted for his outdoor sculptures involving monumental displays of fabrics), whom I greatly admire, would describe art as ephemeral, a moment that existed “once upon a time”. Something happened somewhere. And it transformed the place temporarily. What makes it special for people is the fact that it did happen and that they were there at that moment that the magic happened. It’s about a memory. It’s about a sense of time and place. If you’re there in the place, that’s when the art really makes sense. Although I document everything with photographs, actually being there is the most important thing because you experience it differently when you’re with the art rather than just seeing the picture. By briefly changing the familiar, we get to re-evaluate it, and look at the site/building with fresh eyes, noticing how it sits in its wider environment. While most of these installations go back into my collection, the bigger pieces get recycled because they comprise large amounts of fabric.

You made a debut in India with your installation at the Mumbai Urban Art Festival in January this year. Please tell us about the installation.

It went around a disused colonial building at the gateway to Sassoon Docks. The piece filled the veranda all the way around the entire building. So, it actually wrapped the whole building from end to end; it was 40 metres long. And there were really spikes that came out that were seven or eight metres long. It was done on a short notice. We had about six weeks to do it. I started last year sometime in December, when they contacted me. And we installed it on January 6 this year. Here, the building’s solidity seemed to be in conversation with the fragility of the fabric spikes filled with air.

It is a colonial, crumbling building. But it was beautiful to have learnt about this Portuguese colonial architecture. I learnt about the purpose of the veranda and how people use the upstairs spaces to get the air through. And this is where people mingle and talk. It was fascinating to learn how Portuguese concepts are part of several buildings in Mumbai.

Shireen Quadri is the editor of The Punch Magazine Anthology of New Writing: Select Short Stories by Women Writers.