The Vertical Bazaar

Description

The Vertical Bazaar | Textile | H 77 x W 24 x D 24 inches

The Vertical Bazaar is a functional sculpture that draws from India’s historic networks of trade, craft, and exchange. Composed of five independent stools stacked into a single totem, the work shifts between object and furniture, monument and utility. Each layer is wrapped in a hand crafted textile from a different region of India Batik, Ikat, Bandhani, Kantha, and Ajrakh echoing the journeys of spices and cloth that once moved together across ports, deserts, and marketplaces.

The shape of each stool draws its form from the way spices are traditionally stored in Indian spice markets, held within fabric sacks. The monochromatic spectrum of red binds the piece into a unified whole. Moving from deep, grounded tones at the base to lighter reds at the top, the colour traces ideas of heat, ritual, labour, and life force central to both spices and Indian material culture. Beneath the totem, the dhurrie gathers what the form releases. Stitched from fragments of all five textiles, it dissolves individual identities into a shared ground of memory. What stands apart above returns below as continuity held together by seams, touch, and time.

The Vertical Bazaar is an exploration of how regional identities accumulate rather than dissolve where history is stacked, not erased, and where everyday objects carry the weight of centuries while remaining meant to be touched and used.