As a trained architect, sculptor, installation artist, and landscape designer, Ankon Mitra has time and again straddled design and art galaxies as a pioneer of the folding technique through his diverse projects. Be it his recently unveiled first significant public art installation, 'In the Weaving' in Bengaluru, with pleated wire mesh, or the six-story-tall installation ‘Nirjhara’ – a crystalline waterfall of pleats and folds crafted with shards of folded glass in Jaipur – each of his artworks has meaning, savoir-faire, and symbolism.
Over the years, as a TEDx speaker and a warrior for 'making connections across disciplines' with his brainchild Oritecture - Origami + Architecture, Mitra has unfolded an extraordinary vision of a universe forming and dissolving through acts of folding. His folding practice encompasses materials as diverse as metal, paper, plastics, leather, fabric, concrete, terracotta, glass, and wood veneer.
We spoke to the visionary genius whose studio’s work has been exhibited in India, Italy, France, the UK, USA, the Netherlands, Belgium, Japan, China, Singapore, the Maldives, the Indian Ocean Craft Triennale in Perth, Australia (2024), and upcoming in the Cheongju Craft Biennale in Korea (2025). Mitra's newest installation comprises a hundred saris, a celebration of India's most beloved garment. The installation will be open to the public from August 22 onwards at the Kunj.
RR: Let’s talk about your newest sari installation. What was the take-off point for this unique immersive installation?
Mitra: There was a self-initiated project in 2022 – 'Memories of a Warm Embrace' – wherein old, beautiful heirloom saris of my grandmother from her wedding trousseau became material for a ceiling installation. She had passed, and this was my way of reconnecting with her memory and creating an object which, in the space of our home, became like her blessing and constant presence, sparking deep conversations about her when extended family members visited. I opened this project up to some other friends and associates and made works for them, celebrating their cherished dear departed mothers, aunts, sisters, or grandmothers through their saris. I realised the sari is a repository of not only personal memory and history, but of collective national pride, craft magic, identity, and civilisational memory. So, this personal project transformed into ‘the 100 Sārees Project’.
RR: Your vast body of work is loaded with symbolism and savoir-faire from cosmic references to mythological subtext. What’s the root of your artistic expression?
Mitra: The primary idea is that we are infinite beings with limitless possibilities. This is the underlying message of our Yogis as well as our mythologies. Yet we have chosen to live tiny lives. Our life aims are small, our fights are petty, our conflicts are banal, and a majority of human life is spent in the pursuit of ephemeral and pointless things. We have built a cage, and we live inside it. Our languages, differences in skin colour, nationality, and religion are weaponised to further push us into living out these small lives. Geometry is beyond these differences. It is universal, just as we are universal, and one of the most powerful tools to reconnect with the cosmos and discover our cosmic selves. The works I create are my attempt to establish a dialogue with the cosmos, to break the boundaries of our limited thinking, to expand the potential of what we are truly capable of.
RR: Whether it was the 'Map Unfolded' exhibit last year or the curation of On Paper - Of Paper, each of your projects takes shape at the crossroads of paper art, design, and architecture. How is it pushing the boundaries of traditional art media and forging artistic collaborations?
Mitra: Human beings tend to create silos or mark territories. This is our animal instinct, which has now been made sophisticated with guard rails, rules, frameworks, so that there are clubs in which there are insiders and outsiders. This is an impediment to reaching our full potential. We are not single-dimensional beings. Our minds and souls have massive potential. Each human being is multi-talented. I know this. But the structures we have created thrive on artificially created boundaries. Every project, exhibition, curation that I do is me gently reminding ‘the experts’ about the value of collaborations, of stepping out of our comfort zones and activating ideas which say, “What if…?” An important enabler of such collaboration is humility and putting aside our egos. Activating lateral thinking – we can contemplate science, math, philosophy, history, ecology, cartography, materiality, economics, and a million other things when we create art, design, architecture.
RR: How do you see the future of paper art in India?
Mitra: Our climate and the psychological barrier of thinking of paper as a temporary material are the only two impediments. Paper installations I created 20 years ago are still in excellent condition with the right preservation techniques and maintenance by my patrons. The future is bright for paper artists because the kind of audacious things that can be created with paper, we are as yet barely scratching the surface. And possibilities of temporal art for celebrations, events, and festivals have always been around, but it too is going to explode in the coming years. As our civilization regains confidence, and we regain our financial feet, we will rediscover and reinvent a lot of our traditional craft and art in paper, that was thought to be in decline or lost. I already see the revival happening in isolated pockets. This will spread. I am planning an Indian Paper Triennale, hopefully as soon as 2027. I am manifesting for forces in the universe to align.
RR: You joined the broken pieces with gold powder mixed with resin and created new installations. Have you always been conscious of eco-friendly design practices?
Mitra: I can do better. To be mindful of it is the first step. The Kintsugi was a kind of established idea in Japan, which I was happy to adapt for this project. I am not doing enough, though. Traditionally, India has always been frugal, doing more with less, using local materials to create art and architecture, and repairing and recycling wherever possible. The neighbourhood kabādiwālā? To be honest, artists and architects also waste a lot of materials in the creation of works; geometric and aesthetic perfection cause a lot of material sacrifice. Think about how marble sculptors carve beautiful forms, but in the process, nearly half of a marble block may become marble dust. But the great thing is that as material technologies improve, the marble dust can become agglomerated with resin and become reconstituted marble again. Artists and designers have to keep abreast of these material innovations and choose these new upcycled materials to create their works. We have begun to use a lot of cotton rag and recycled paper in our paper art projects. It helps us to reduce the guilt (somewhat) from when we have to use plastics and acrylic paints in our works!
RR: A lot of your artworks are inspired by personal memories, like Framing The Frame, which was inspired by a family album of memories. Do you often revel in nostalgia as an origamist?
Mitra: For us humans, a sense of history is the equivalent of the roots of a tree. We are where we are and what we are because of the combined actions and efforts of our ancestors. Personal histories, community histories, and national histories are all important. Becoming modern and forward-looking does not mean that we lose our anchorage.
We couldn’t help but ask the multi-disciplinary artist which material he finds most creatively satisfying. “As an architect, working with materials, the dialogues with their strengths, weaknesses, and possibilities are one of the most exciting aspects of my practice. Since my primary and signature technique is that of folding or creating folds, the first question I ask of a material is, “Will you fold?” Sometimes the material may allow itself to be folded with relative ease, like paper, fabric, leather, or plastic. At other times, it may be somewhat challenging, like copper or steel, and sometimes the material may refuse to fold at first, like concrete or glass, and then it becomes a game of eventually convincing the material to agree to fold. The materials have a life and a mind of their own. All things in the universe do,” he shares.
