The PIFAS Temple
A May 2009 collaboration between me and designer Lauren Manoogian as part of the larger PIFAS Place Project.
While traveling through Northern and Western India, Lauren and I were both struck by the strong Indian design aesthetic: vibrant colors, the use of materials that in the US would be considered "busy" and "tacky", the impetus to put pattern and embellishment on nearly everything (including cargo trucks), Bollywood, the "peasant women" in Rajasthan who performed manual labor in brightly colored saris, the marigold-colored garlands, and the sadhus with their peach and white robes.
Our goal with the PIFAS Temple was to recreate a roadside temple like the ones we saw in Udaipur and Varanasi, decorating this "nook" with things that summarized our Indian experience: bright paper cutouts, bejeweled patches from Kinari Bazaar in Old Delhi, feathers, pony beads, strings of pom poms, sequins, small mirrors, contact paper, gold paper from Jaipur.
I also wanted to include the element of printed plastic wrappers from American products. Many American food companies outsource their printed wrappers to India (as well as China). While waiting for a connecting train in Haridiwar, we discovered plastic tote bags made out of reams of Whiskas cat food packaging (and Skittles, Starburst and Tyson Chicken Breast strips and many more). Apparently, the throw-away ends of the reams are repurposed and reused.
But what was the purpose of our "temple" beyond a questionably colonial mish-mash? Another thing Lauren and I discussed was the Indian reverence for animals, from the cows and stray dogs freely roaming the streets, to Hanuman and Nandi. We also discussed the psychology and responsibility of pet ownership. We began to draw threads between caring for and loving an animal: the ritual of three scoops of food in the bowl, the regular walks, the repetitive games, the reliable guard animal at one's feet, as well as the passing and mourning of a pet. We recognized, with a certain measured sadness, that we had reached the age (the full-on entrance into adulthood) where many of our childhood pets were reaching the end of their own lives. So our temple was to be a shrine to those animals in our lives, a destination in PIFAS where one could participate in daily puja which included the lighting of incense and "food" offerings, accompanied by the holy music of JK Banerjee. Lauren and I also participated in another Indian tradition, hand-dyeing thin pieces of fabric. These strips were also incorporated into the puja; after saying a devotion to a house pet, you were to take a piece of the fabric and pin it to the wall behind you, much like a votive. All of this was done under the watch of a warrior-like Dog murti, the Dog God.
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