His project, titled The Bollywood Movie Star, is a short film (below) that follows Koerner through the process of creating his protest posters. The reason Koerner dances through the video is to signify the irony of the dancing ban — and of course all Bollywood movies must have dancing. The video leads viewers through the production, from dancing snapshot to digital print to a tiny print shop in Bangalore, where Koerner says he waited a week and a half for the artist who does the image rendering to show up. If you watch closely, you can see that the artist draws the prints by applying an acid liquid directly on aluminum plates.
“Actually I was very surprised to see such a traditional way of printing. These artists have become a rarity. India is special in that handmade things are still cheaper than machine made. India’s large population and high poverty rate play a big role in this system. And I am pretty sure there is more stuff that like out there that will disappear soon, considering the fast rising of India’s economy. I guess I was just in time with this project. I can imagine the next time I visit India, these guys will either have left … or changed to digital printing,” says Koerner.
As for the paper used for the posters, Koerner says he can’t really say — since the printers only spoke Kannada.
German-born architect and designer Fabian Sixtus Koerner (a.k.a. fabsn) began a global journey on Jan. 25, 2010, with goals of exploration and creation. He’s traveled to China, Malaysia, India, Egypt and Ethiopia, picking up design projects to pay for room and board (and some just for the love of design). Follow his adventures on his blog. And Koerner highly recommends everyone dance during their next press check.
See previous coverage of Bollywood movie posters here.
