6 May — 10 June 2017 

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Penumbra: 
n. comp. from lat. paene ‘nearly’ and umbra ‘shadow’.
An intermediate area or state between shadow and light.

Betts Project is delighted to present Penumbra, an exhibition of renowned Indian architect Bijoy Jain of Studio Mumbai. This will be the artist’s first solo exhibition in the UK.

The exhibition will present a landscape through an exploration of material studies varying in scales, forms & techniques, all interspersed through intuition and intention, to allow the audience to immerse themselves in these distant landscapes where existence is not reactionary but elemental. These landscapes are both notional and real at the same time. 

‘Civilization is built on an aqueous foundation. A world that is in a constant flux, a culture continually in ebb and flow.’ —Bijoy Jain

‘Immediacy of material and immediacy of actions - of doing and undoing, is the only way to negotiate uncertainty. Spontaneity allows us to be agile and adaptable against circumstances beyond our control. Temporality then, is not consequential but intentional that can constantly absorb the dis-balance. Our endeavour is to be ever aware and find moments of epiphany in this. Everything we do then is with awareness and intent however temporary or short-lived.

We live in overlays of varied landscapes – natural and cultural. Our notion of the world is formed through continual engagements with these landscapes. We would like to constantly traverse these landscapes physically and metaphorically to continually expand our world. Through our continued research and documentation of these landscapes, we have discovered many phenomena which are discreetly present but non-extant in the collective consciousness. We are curious to test how this tacit knowledge can be transferred. We hope that this experience will allow the observer to discover essentials of the world and of one selves.’ —Studio Mumbai

Studio Mumbai works with a human infrastructure of skilled artisans, technicians and draftsmen who design and build the work directly. This group shares an environment created from an iterative process, where ideas are explored through the production of large-scale mock-ups, models, material studies, sketches and drawings. Projects are developed through careful consideration of place and practice that draws from traditional skills, local building techniques, materials and an ingenuity arising from limited resources. The Studio has designed the 2016 edition of Melbourne’s MPavilion, an annual commission touted as Australia’s answer to London’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, and is having projects in India, Japan, Switzerland and South of France.

Bijoy Jain was born in Mumbai, India in 1965 and received his M. Arch from Washington University in St Louis, USA in 1990. He worked with Richard Meier in Los Angeles and London between 1989 and 1995 before returning to India in 1995 to found his practice. a He has taught in Copenhagen, Yale and Mendrisio.

Exhibitions include those held at the Venice Biennale (2010, 2012 and 2016), Between the Sun and the Moon: a major monographic touring exhibition at Arc en Rêve, Centre d’Architecture Bordeaux, FR (2015), DAM Frankfurt, DE (2016) and DAC Copenhagen, DK (2016); Canadian Center for Architecture, Montreal, Canada (2014), Sharjah Biennial (2013), 1:1 Architects Build Small Spaces, Victoria & Albert Museum (2010).

Awards include the Global Award in Sustainable Architecture (2009), finalist for the 11th cycle of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (2010), winner of the seventh Spirit of Nature Wood Architecture Award, Finland (2012), winner of the third BSI Swiss Architecture Award (2012), most recently winner of the Grande Medaille d’Or from the Academie D’Architecture, Paris, France (2014), and the University of Hasselt, Belgium bestowed an honorary doctorate on Bijoy Jain in 2014. 

On the occasion of the exhibition Penumbra the Architecture Foundation invites Bijoy Jain to give a lecture at the Royal Geographical Society on Thursday 4 May.