Ideas in Practice

Lekha Washington, who recently launched a collection for her lifestyle brand Ajji, talks about making functional art and her waning interest in films

Lekha Washington’s helium balloon installation for Kochi Biennale comes to Mumbai next month

A pile of cubes in suede is placed near the entrance of Upstairs, a cosy studio housed on the first floor of a heritage house in Bandra. Stacked side-by-side in a rectangular fashion, the stools, in bright orange and grey, lend a burst of colour to the all-white space. Lekha Washington picks up a few and stacks them atop one another. “They have tiny magnets at the centre and can be placed together to take the shape of any kind of furniture — an armchair, a bed or even a side-table,” she says.

The pieces are from artist-actor Washington’s latest collection, ATOM, launched in the city last week. Made with an extra-light fabric, the units are portable and can be covered with any surface upholstery for its transformation from one piece to another. The collection is an extension of Washington’s previous pieces for Ajji — The Odd Product Company, a lifestyle brand she established last year. “I started playing with magnets and that’s where the inspiration for the collection came from. Now that the idea is here, we’re going to interpret it in various ways. It all takes time and we had to consider the size of the magnet, its strength and the choice of material,” she says.

The 2,000 sq ft studio also features her previous pieces, such as the iconic Dot — a flat, circular lycra-covered piece installed on a wall that takes the form of a chair as soon as one sits on it. Pink Sink and Squair are other designs that don’t at first appear as seating units. “Witnessing the surprise people experience when they first sit on these pieces is my reward and the reason I create. User interaction is very important to me,” says Washington.

Washington graduated from the National Institute of Design with degrees in both lifestyle product design and film direction. However, she’s nurtured her creative leanings since her early years. The 27-year-old showcased her sculptures at the Lalit Kala Akademi in Delhi over a decade ago. “I would play with resin, silicon and fibreglass. People who knew my work would call me ‘latex Lekha’,” she says, laughing.

The artist founded Ajji, named after her grandmother (Washington is part-Maharashtrian), to give form to her ideas. Functional art, she maintains, will remain her mainstay. “I’m not making uncomfortable chairs in the name of high art. It isn’t easy to give form to an original idea.”

In 2007, she embarked on a film career in the South and acted in several Tamil, Kannada and Telugu films over the years — her Kalyana Samayal Saadham in Tamil last year was a blockbuster. Her cinematic endeavours there are on a decline as the offers have been too commercial.

Next month, Washington, in association with Godrej Culture Lab, will bring to Mumbai the installation in helium and light that she created for the Kochi Biennale. “It has big balloons floating in the sky at 150 ft, depicting the different phases of the moon. A seven-piece installation, it will be set up on the way to the Bandra-Worli Sealink,” she says.

shikha.kumar@expressindia.com

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