Thukral & Tagra need no introduction. Since the past twenty years, the artist duo have been creating extremely thought-provoking art across mediums, pushing their own capabilities and enlarging their repertoire. All through their journey they have spread awareness through their visual voice and encouraged public engagement. Not one to be conventional, Jiten & Sumir have taken an extremely interesting turn by introducing games in their inventory. Through their eclectic range of games, that have been carefully designed keeping environment, sustainability and awareness in mind, they have managed sharing value-based knowledge across different generations.
“One of the most common comfort areas between us is that both of us have grown up around paper, ink, print and typography. My father (Sumir’s) and all my family had printing presses, so I have grown up seeing letterpress, offset printing and special colours. I am extremely familiar with the smell, the process, et cetera. Jiten too has had a similar background. His dad is still involved with the press. They still have a graphic design studio in Jalandhar. One of the reasons why we have a love of making books and games, and exploring other mediums than art, is because we had knowledge of paper, how it feels, how it smells, the weight. So first, of course, it was the family history, plus we both wanted to do our own publication from a really long time and we had different thoughts of wanting to turn it into a magazine, then we thought we will do something else with it.”
The lockdown made T&T retrospect. They realised that all the steps — from task, proposal and research, to sketches and processes — behind the making of an exhibition go unseen. All along, they have archived their processes within their studio capacity in a simple format but have never had a space to showcase these things. “Galleries are not interested in showing or exhibiting these things. We reached a stage where we thought why don’t we produce our own books, let’s give it a name and let’s give it a place, and that’s how And Archive was born. It started from Thukral & Tagra and archives. Also we toyed with the idea of what is And Archive and what is T&T archive. We wanted to create some kind of format that allows the people to go into the studio without physically going, as that is quite intimidating for artists. A book documents the process in a very candid format for people to come and see it. So And Archive now looks like an umbrella project and T&T archive is a part of it. It’s a nice way of respecting the process and the backend that helps create the final product.”
Weeping Farm is the first publication under And Archive and it is a product of seven to eight years of research. “We have met the farmers and understood their concerns, there is active involvement.” Through the book they have given a voice to the voiceless, moving the lens on important causes that need conscious involvement. “It’s a long commitment; it’s like knitting a very large sort of fabric, which may turn into something or might just document time. All the learning of it turned into a game play — Weeping Farm book extended itself to Weeping Farm game because in all this, women were missing as there has always been a systematic evasion. Women farmers are not considered as farmers at all, even by the government. So the game is made on women farming. The game is printed on hand-woven fabric keeping sustainability in mind. We now see this as a medium in the art world. It’s performative, there is research and design and form making. It can be seen as a sculpture piece. It has a wider audience as it can reach students in schools and universities.”
A walk with GURU NANAK
A walk with Guru Nanak Game is premised on Guru Nanak Dev Ji’s 24 years long four spiritual journeys (UDASIS) to deliver the message of peace, love, equality, virtue, and compassion to humanity with his companion, Bhai Mardana. The aim of his sacred mission was to educate the masses residing in the countries in all four directions of the Indian Subcontinent and restore humanity in the midst of expanding ignorance and worldly attachments. This spiritual gameplay manifests into a moral exercise leading the players accountable for their actions. In each round, depending on luck or chance, this simple, smooth-moving game enables a player to view life through a viewfinder/ lens of fair and just thinking.
The first of the T&T games started as 8ft by 4ft format — more an installation and was exhibited at galleries but no one bought the game. When they were hit by the pandemic, all their small vendors, who were pro- ducing work for them, were asking for more work so they spent six months on figuring out how to proportionately make the games smaller. “We started placing orders for a hundred games at a time and we sold eighteen hundred of the Nanak games. So, from large format games we came up with board games and then pocket games.” No one knows what’s next, but as always, their artistry will be influenced by their own reality, their homes, their Punjabi diaspora and their community. As artists, they veer towards bringing about awareness on subjects and causes that very often go unnoticed and need attention like female farmers, climate change, the Indian agrarian crisis, migration and much more. We got a little glimpse into the various games they make.
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Text Shruti Kapur Malhotra
Date 30-05-2022