Founding Fathers, Etihad Museum, Dubai
A Motivate–Zakti project
Our first exhibition design project in Dubai, Founding Fathers opened on 7 March 2019 to the cream of Emirati society.
The exhibition was held in conjunction with the launch of the book which revealed the special relationship between Sheikh Zayed, the late first President of UAE, and Sheikh Rashid, the late first Vice-President.
Etihad Museum
Entrance to Gallery
The book featured portraits of the two Sheikhs solely from end to end. Prominent as the personalities were, their pictures alone would not be able to sustain the interest of visitors in an exhibition.
The team decided to craft a journey uncovering images of the Sheikhs as seen through the lens of the photographer, Ramesh Shukla. Ramesh’s life—from humble beginnings to de facto royal photographer—became intertwined with the rise of the nation and its rulers.
The exhibition opened with larger-than-life portraits of Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid on translucent banners “among which a visitor can walk with UAE’s first visionary leaders”.
I wanted to create a monumental visual effect that reflected the Sheikhs’ grand vision that transformed simple desert dwellings into the country’s international cities of today.
PARALLEL STORies
In 1965, a young Ramesh travelled from Mumbai to Dubai in a Dwarka boat, a gruelling 5-day journey, surviving on the few bunches of bananas he had packed. On him, a Rolleicord camera gifted by his father on his 15th birthday, 25 rolls of film, two shirts, a pair of slippers and Rs50 (today’s value, Dh77 or USD21.00).
The exhibition had a second storyline—the story of traditional film-based photography, displaying Ramesh’s cameras and photo equipment from the 1960s.
A timeline wall recounts significant historical moments of UAE and Ramesh’s extraordinary journey. A video (with images washed in red) placed at the entrance to a mock-up darkroom explains the darkroom process.
Of interest to young photographers were Ramesh’s light meters of all shapes and sizes.
Two videos were produced for the exhibition. Left // Ramesh’s Journey. Right // The Darkroom Process by Ramesh’s son, Neil.
The mock-up darkroom. We recorded the sound of prints sloshing in the chemicals, etc, and some small talk in Hindi in the background to bring life into the darkroom space. What's missing was the pungent smell of the film and print processing chemicals.
Ramesh Shukla’s one-room house. At night it transforms into his darkroom, using his family’s food trays (thalis) to develop the prints. Every morning, his wife Taru had to smell the plates for any trace of chemicals before putting food on them. From 11 pm to 8 am, Ramesh develops 30 or 50 rolls, and sometimes prints 200 to 500 photos.
In a 2017 interview, he said he is yet to process more than 2,000 rolls of film taken during the 70s and 80s.
Portrait of a young Ramesh and his son, Neel, in the corner of the darkroom
A photo wall displays Ramesh’s most significant images of the Sheikhs and the early years of the nation.
Interactive Technology
Positive and negative was one of the key visual themes of the exhibition.
“I had visualised the entire exhibition to be clad in contrasts: black and white (and the red of the darkroom), light and dark, veiled and revealed, positive and negative.”
We developed a real-time interactive display that captured this idea.
Sensor based and driven by optics, a surprise awaited visitors as they were leaving the gallery. They encountered an interactive wall where they see their negative self-image in real-time as they walked by.
Designed to surprise and delight, it was a fitting recap to the storyline between the photographer and the Founding Fathers.
“The positive-negative interactive wall is particularly intriguing in the context of the Middle East where men traditionally wear white, and women black. It’s always a surprise for visitors to catch themselves in reverse colours. I observed some guests having some fun with their full-toothed smiles as their teeth will appear black and rather strange looking.”
The Interactive Wall was first tested at Zakti Labs, Kuala Lumpur
Testing the Interactive Wall on-site, Etihad Museum
His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Emir of Dubai, Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, receiving the Founding Fathers book from Ramesh’s son, Neel Shukla.
UPDATE The one-month exhibition which opened on 7 March 2019 was extended to the end of February 2020 due to popular response.
PRESS
Founding Fathers Exhibition—http://whatson.ae/…/check-out-this-new-photography-exhibit…/
Ramesh’s story—https://fridaymagazine.ae/…/meet-ramesh-shukla-the-man-who-…
Motivate is our partner in UAE, one of the largest media communication organisations in the Middle East.