Museum Piece
Divya N
Museum Piece
Divya N
India / National Institute of Fashion Technology, Chennai
Some lose themselves in street markets, in malls, at concerts, others in luxurious hotels that offer gourmet meals and a beach view; I lose myself in museums.
As a design educator I am surrounded by fashion, art, and design. It is a part of my daily, ordinary existence. Yet, a museum is one of the few places in the world where I feel truly extraordinary. I associate art, design, and fashion with the greatness of the creator, the maker. Through the act of looking, a bit of this greatness magically transfers to me, provoking me to create, for a fleeting yet glorious minute.
But every time I step into the hallowed galleries of a museum, I get lost. Often metaphorically, sometimes literally. I walk as far as the red tapes allow me. I buy postcards and magnets at the museum gift shops, hoping to take back with me art in a tangible form. The receipt says “Explore centuries of art with 5% off your next purchase” and I stare blankly at it. I click photographs endlessly to “show them to my students” knowing full well that they will lie forgotten in a folder on my computer once I get home. Unlike the other visitors who are chained to their audio guides, I do not go looking for noteworthy titbits. For me, the experience of being there takes precedence. Hours pass by as I try to memorise the colours, textures, brush strokes, tool marks, and the embellishments that I see. I breathe it in, wishing to imprint their genius in my brain. I fail, as the images superimpose on one another. The names of artists, their techniques, the time periods blur. I make my journey home, cold as a marble statue, wearing only a vague memory of my visit. I am the Museum Piece!
The Museum Piece is a series of photographs that are the visual narrative of my state of mind at a museum. It is the vocalization of my comment on museum gaze, commodification of art and the link between body, memory and jewellery. The model is wearing a necklace of postcards and headphones collected from the Louvre and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC. The head wrap is a mask of cancan mesh sewn together with faux pearls, and the ring is laser cut wood with an image from a gallery brochure and resin.
The words “Museum Piece” have another connotation as well. Where I come from, they are used to refer to someone who thinks, talks or behaves in a unique way. So much so that they ought to be displayed at a museum as an object to be gawked at, even ridiculed. Thus silenced, they can no longer voice their opinion.
Museum Piece | Divya N | Picture postcards, metal brackets, embellishments, earphones, wood, cancan, faux pearls, and resin.
CREDITS
Concept, Creative direction, Styling and jewellery – Divya N https://www.instagram.com/jewelsofsayuri
Photographer – Ram Keshav https://www.instagram.com/ramkeshavphotographer/
Model – Ananya Singh https://www.instagram.com/ananya.aynana/
The Museum Piece by Divya N - A comment on museum gaze, commodification of art and the memory of it all.
The Museum Piece by Divya N - A comment on museum gaze, commodification of art and the memory of it all.
The Museum Piece by Divya N - A comment on museum gaze, commodification of art and the memory of it all.
The Museum Piece by Divya N - A comment on museum gaze, commodification of art and the memory of it all.
The Museum Piece by Divya N - A comment on museum gaze, commodification of art and the memory of it all.
The Museum Piece by Divya N - A comment on museum gaze, commodification of art and the memory of it all.
The Museum Piece by Divya N - A comment on museum gaze, commodification of art and the memory of it all.
The Museum Piece by Divya N - A comment on museum gaze, commodification of art and the memory of it all.
Bio: Divya N
website: https://www.jewelsofsayuri.com
instagram: @jewelsofsayuri
facebook: @jewelsofsayuri
Fashion & Jewellery Designer | Educator | Blogger
Divya is a designer with an undergraduate degree in Apparel & Fashion Design and Masters in Education. As an apparel designer she has worked with Madura garments (Aditya Birla Nuvo Ltd) and freelanced for several brands such as Misfits, Cankruz, Pupa, Fashionous and KH Leather. She has designed uniforms for Pavers England and AVM Rajeshwari School and academic dress for IIT Tirupati and IISER Tirupati.
A self-taught jewellery designer, she launched her brand “Sayuri” in 2008. In a span of 11 years, she has created over 2100 pieces of costume jewellery including 12 thematic collections. She has also collaborated with brands such as Swarovski Elements, Ice Resin, Plessman leather, Beadmixer, Coolture and Favecrafts for projects. She has been featured in several national and regional newspapers and magazines in India in addition to a feature on the Travel & living Channel. Her jewellery has been published in trade magazines such as Jewelry Stringing, Create Jewelry and Beadwork. Divya has worked as a fashion writer for She.Sulekha.com and Favecrafts while authoring a jewellery blog where she documents the scope of contemporary jewellery in India’s cultural milieu.
As a Design educator, Divya has taught fashion design as a guest faculty in several institutes at Chennai such as National College of Design; INIFD, Chennai; Academy of Fashion and Design, and the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) before joining NIFT as Assistant Professor in 2014. She teaches subjects such as fashion, culture and costume, colour psychology, fashion styling, fashion journalism, trend forecasting and visual culture studies, and jewellery design and design fundamentals. Her research has been published in Scope Contemporary Research Topics, Research into Design Across Boundaries by Springer, NAAC journal for education, and the Case Handbook of Fashion Retail and Management. She is currently pursuing a PhD in contemporary jewellery design.