The outsider perspective | Michael Aram | TEDxYerevan

An internationally recognized designer who has lived and worked in India since 1989, Michale Aram trained as a painter, sculptor, and art historian, and has neatly applied his diverse background to the decorative arts. His work is also a celebration of craft and age-old handworking traditions. It is the enduring fusion of these ideals of originality and craftsmanship that has become the hallmark of this artist.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

It's just so wonderful
being here in Yerevan,

on my third visit.

My first visit was in 1980,
as a 16-year-old American kid.

And I can tell you,
from my outsider perspective then,

it's a very different place,
and it's very exciting to be part of this.

My great-grandmother used to tell me
when I was a child,

(Armenian)

Which, for those of you
who don't speak Armenian,

like myself, too well,

it means "as many languages as you speak,
you're that many people."

The message there is,
with greater understanding,

and with language,
we can understand culture

and therefore become broader people,
with a broader perspective.

What I'm talking about today though,
is the opposite of that.

It's about the value
of not having a broad perspective,

of not having that sort of feeling
that you understand things

or feeling like things are blasé.

It's about seeing things
for the first time,

and the visceral reaction we have
when we see things

that are that sort of different for us,
and are foreign for us and our culture.

I want to talk about how that
impacted me, as a designer,

and what I saw, and what I experienced
on my first trip to India, in 1989.

I went to visit some friends of mine,
who lived in New Delhi,

and while I was there,
I would spend my day, sort of,

ambling around the old city, Old Delhi,
which was about a different a place

as I ever could imagine a place being.

My friends from Delhi,
generally didn't go to the Old City,

because they felt it was crowded,
there was no way to get there,

except on foot or by a rickshaw,
and it was generally off-limits for them.

For me, it was just this magical place,
which seemed like a place out of the past,

like a hundred years ago,
or hundreds and hundreds of years ago.

There was something ancient about it
that really fascinated me.

As you can see the streets are so crowded
and it's really, very chaotic.

But it was that difference
that for me was hugely exciting.

It was a romantic city for me,
the calls to prayers echoing

throughout the small lanes.

I would walk up and down
the narrow lanes and discover

all these small shops.

Every small shop had things
which were handmade,

and were generally made in workshops,
either right behind the stores,

or right next to them.

For me, discovering a place
where things were made, was electrifying.

You know, all I had known,
from my experience in America,

was things which felt
very pre-packaged, or manufactured.

So to see things which actually
had that handmade element,

was absolutely mesmerizing for me.

I saw shops which did printed textiles,
hand-bound books,

all kinds of things,
that I really couldn't imagine.

The shops that impacted me
the most though,

were the shops that were
making objects made in metal:

hand-forged buckets,
and shovels, and scissors;

things that took such skill to create.

As a fine arts student in New York,
having worked in metal,

I knew what it was like
to work that material,

and it was something,
really awe-inspiring for me.

I would hunt out craftsmen
in the Old City,

by listening for the beating of the metal.

I'd follow rickshaws, which had
interesting things on the back of them,

all as ways to find workshops
where things were being made.

I discovered a small workshop,
where they were doing sand-cast bronze,

and learned to smell the baked molasses,
in the sand-casting process.

I would hunt out other small workshops,
which were doing sand-casting,

to basically learn how the crafts happen,

to understand, what was available,
in terms of crafts.

My impressions were,
that the pieces had a vibration.

They had a vitality to them
that I didn't recognize,

from products I had seen abroad,
which all felt very manufactured-looking.

The pieces themselves
were highly imperfect, I would say.

And they weren't very desirable
for the local community.

People who were making
hand-forged buckets, for example,

had made them that way
for hundreds of years.

But the local consumers

were running to the stores
and buying the imported, plastic buckets

which held water, didn't leak,
were much lighter and easier to clean.

Shops which were making scissors by hand,
beautifully, from my perspective,

incredibly, beautifully forged
hand-made scissors,

were withering because people were buying
the imported scissors made in China,

with the orange, plastic handles
that cut paper really well.

So there was this whole tribe of artisans
who were doing work

which was absolutely exquisite
from my point of view,

but, was becoming obsolete
in the local market.

From my perspective,
as an artist in New York,

the only people who were making things,
were other artists so,

the work that they were doing for me
was utterly inspiring

and really just took my breath away.

At that point, there were no phonebooks,
no directories, no tradeshows,

nothing to support the artisans.

So the only way to find them

was really to hunt them out,
listen for them

and explore the Old Cities.

These are the kind of workshops
I would just fall upon.

What I would do is just,
watch the craftsmen stand in the shops,

there I was, sort of the ultimate
American at that point,

with a baseball cap and t-shirt,

staring, and watching these guys
doing their incredible work.

I think they thought
I was absolutely crazy sometimes,

and wondered what I was doing.

But over time, I did drawings,
in a notebook that I had,

and would show the artisans
drawings of things that I had made,

and asked them, in gesticulation,
and with drawings in my notebook,

what I wanted them to create.

Some of the craftsmen, like this guy here,
was making cooking vessels.

The cooking vessels in India

were something
that had been made for centuries.

But now, with modernization,
and industrialization,

most Indian kitchens were looking
to become more westernized and modern,

and were looking for pots and pans
with plastic handles,

which would be easier to hold,
and more convenient.

The craftsmen, which I considered
national treasures,

and people who just had
extraordinary skills,

were just becoming obsolete.

Generally, India, on its quest
towards industrialization,

was looking for things which felt
more modern, and felt more western.

So, I decided at that point
I would work with the local craftsmen,

and try to make objects
which celebrated what they did.

What I looked at, was the beauty
of the imperfection.

Unlike the cookies we ate earlier,
and the talk about design perfection,

my philosophy was that we have
to celebrate the handmade process,

and look at the inherent quality,
in the handmade goods.

It was something very different for India,

and also something very different
for the US market at that point.

What I did, was make pieces which showed
all the hammer marks,

all the hand-cut edges
of the metal, and really say,

let's celebrate the humanity
in these pieces,

and say, yes, we're not machine-made,
that's precisely why it has value.

And it was my outsider perspective,
that saw the value in that,

where these Indian artisans generally
had very little pride in their work;

in fact they were embarrassed about it.

My Indian friends were also
quite embarrassed

about what was available
locally at that time.

It was all about getting imported goods,
and how wonderful everything was abroad,

and people felt very apologetic,

and really had no sense of pride
in what was available locally.

I made some buckets with those guys
who were making the pots earlier,

and instead of making them
in copper and brass,

I encouraged them
to make them in stainless steel,

which was a material
they had never worked with.

So, we made these steel pots, and they
were laughing to themselves afterwards,

and finally, I understood why.

They said the pots looked like the pots
they put cow dung in.

So there was a lot
of back and forth, and confusion,

and giggles about the process,

but over time, we really learned
a lot from each other.

And I decided to set up a workshop,
there I am, there in my studio,

and it was a very exciting time,
when I set up the workshop,

because we had a lot of magazines,

international magazines
come and see we were doing.

We had film crews from Europe
coming to photograph it.

We had a lot of encouragement
from the wealthy Indian clientele

who would come to the studio,
and buy my work.

But I think the ultimate for the workers,
when we had Bollywood stars come

to the workshop, and buy my things.

Because finally, they realized

these things have value, and they weren't
just my "rotten iron pieces",

as a lot of my Indian friends call them.

Interestingly enough, over the years,
this is some of my work now,

I've had the opportunity
to exhibit them all over the world.

I was voted Indian designer of the year,
by "El Decor" magazine in India,

which I took as a great
compliment, as a non-Indian.

I was also invited
by the governemnt of India,

to represent the best
of Indian handy crafts,

at trade shows in Australia, and Japan.

When the organizers found out
I wasn't Indian, they were a bit shocked,

but that was a lot of fun.

And recently, at a trade show in New York,
I was exhibiting my pieces,

and an Indian manufacturer came up to me
and said, "Are these made in Italy?"

And I kept saying, "No, India."
And he kept saying, "Italy? Italy?"

And I'd say, "No, India, India".

And it wasn't until I told him in Hindi,
that he finally understood,

that these were pieces
made in his own country,

that could be made with his own workers,

in his own factory.

It took an outsider's vision
to prove to an Indian

what could be done in his own country.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)