Asim Waqif creates dense bamboo display at the Hayward in London

A dense bamboo dwelling – part musical instrument, part refuge from the visitors who flock to the Southbank – has been erected outside the Hayward Gallery (until 22 October 2023). A matrix of 610 bamboo poles and 700 strips of bamboo, softened and made supple from days of soaking in water, arc over each other, fan out, and weave themselves through the rungs of a steel scaffolding frame. Conceived by Indian artist Asim Waqif, the installation, वेणु, translated as Venu, an ancient Sanskrit word meaning bamboo reed or flute, is interactive: you can walk through, sit in, and even play it.  

Asim Waqif at the Hayward Gallery

Within, lengths of bamboo bend to form a cocoon-like seat embellished with woven palms, while thick stems, skilfully split and tuned, create a series of drums accompanied by a supply of carved sticks ready for visitors to strike a beat. Spontaneous creativity is a touchstone of Waqif’s practice, and it is reflected in the way he builds his interdisciplinary projects and opens them up to morph and be manipulated by audiences. 

Working with a group of structural engineers, technicians, students at the Royal College of Art, and his long-time collaborator, the architect Shantanu Heisnam, Waqif shaped the installation over ten days after the team had been taught a knotting technique called lashing. ‘I wanted everyone to get responsibility for taking some creative decisions’, Waqif explains. ‘The kind of ideas and the work that happens is then very different from an instruction based process’. The design thus progressed on site. 

वेणु[ is the first work Waqif has exhibited in the UK, and while related to a recent piece, Improvise, which was shown at Kochi-Muziris Biennale, it not only responds to the site but will likely also, given the expected levels of interaction, end up bearing the marks of its use. A scaffolding rig is encased within the form to de-exoticise and contextualise the bamboo as a resource that is a ubiquitous building material used in construction projects across South and Southeast Asia. 

Having trained as an architect, Waqif is sensitive to what he sees as the need to preserve historic knowledge and existing ecologies as South Asia’s urban sprawl booms. Across his practice he uses vernacular techniques and materials to foreground the value and relevance of pre-industrial processes. ‘I like using traditional methods to arrive at very contemporary forms and find that weaving and basket making have very similar properties to what is now being talked about as parametric design’, he says. वेणु highlights what can be considered old technologies of sustainability that will, once the installation ends, be inherited as the work is unbound and redistributed.

Asim Waqif: वेणु [Venu] at the Hayward Gallery, 20 July – 22 October 2023

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