Charles and Ray Eames in India

The United States And South Asia From The Age Of Empire To Decolonization. A History of Entanglements

“…As mentioned earlier, steamship travel to India from North and South America was not active. 94 If the music came directly from the United States, it likely arrived via sailing ship from the Pacific Coast of North America, then by steamer from Australia. It's also possible that the music was shipped (via steamship or otherwise) from the Atlantic seaboard to England, then via steamships to India.…”

“…93 The ABCFM commemorated him tellingly as "the best product of India's life", while the Mayor of Pittsburgh and the Governor of Pennsylvania sent their condolences to his foster mother. 94 To finance the education of the children, the AMM depended on the generosity of American donors. Since the Armenian massacre of 1894-96 had recently pushed missionaries to open orphanages in Armenia, orphan care had become a part of the ABCFM's work.…”

“…Curtis was not quite sure about the best method to save the endangered white boy from these pernicious influences. While he showed some sympathy for the British "Boys' Brigades system" with its "military training", 94 he also acknowledgeed that the original could not be transferred unaltered to the context of a colonial society without the risk of potentially embarrassing cultural misunderstandings:…”

Design and the Evolving Tradition of Sanganer Hand Block Printing: Formation and Negotiation of Artisanal Knowledge and Identities Against the Backdrop of Intangible Cultural Heritage

“…Martha Scotford in her introduction to the Indian special of Design Issues reminds us that 'Design' has been integral to craft development there since independence (Scotford 2005), with McGowan (2009) and Balaram (2005) highlighting the role of British officials and Art Schools in imposing Western techniques to improve 'native taste' (Mathur 2011:44). This marginalized Indian craftsmen (Balaram 2005) into 'native' as opposed to 'progressive' (Athavankar 2002: 44), and while the Swadeshi movement sought to stimulate endogenous production (Chatterjee 2005, Balaram 1989) Mathur (2011) argues that its rhetoric only reiterated the colonial division between traditional village craft and industrial design.…”

“…Here we witness the designer as an imposer of new practices, with only the manual job of printing left to the artisan while he receives design and color palette and is even uninvited to bring to bear his traditional expertise technically. This reality somewhat irritates the agenda of development agencies like UNESCO, and higher education institutions like Pearl Academy, Indian Institute of Craft and Design (IICD) and National Institute of Design India (NID) who promote the 'designer as a mediator', much akin to the common interpretation of the Eames' conception of design bridging the gap between tradition and modernity (Mathur 2011). An academic at NID reiterates this point when saying that "(…) to a large extent we are telling our students… whenever you are working with the established craft tradition the first step is the humility to understand what their vocabulary, language and culture is.…”