Red is reimagined in Fort Kochi with 13 installations and an unexpected colour palette

Explore the immersive art exhibit "A Story in Red" in Fort Kochi, featuring 13 installations celebrating memory, culture, and emotion.

I am often hesitant to say I love the colour red. Being a Malayali, many joke that it reveals my (non-existent) Communist leanings. Being dark skinned, others warn me to skip it in my wardrobe. But for me it’s the colour of manjadikuru, the lucky red seeds I used to collect in my grandmother’s overgrown backyard in Alappuzha. Of piping hot red matta rice that my mother would serve every visit home.

And now, thanks to Asian Paints’ A Story in Red, perhaps of my (next) living room ceiling? The immersive multi-room exhibit at Bafna House in Fort Kochi has certainly given me options: scarlet, fig shell, Bordeaux burgundy, otter brown, and a stunning fuchsia.

Curated by interior stylist and textile aficionado Ranji Kelekar, the site-specific experience has been put together with the intent to showcase the potential a colour can have to move between forms and textures, to travel across cultures and communities, and even to “perform”. As Amit Syngle, MD and CEO of Asian Paints, puts it, red is “rooted in craft, design and ritual — in the protests of Kerala, the auspiciousness of festivals in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal”, the bangles clinking on wrists across India. “It has a certain kind of storytelling that merges seamlessly with the installations at the [Bafna] house,” he says, “the interplay of light, form and pigment coming together to give the space and its objects multidimensionality.”

A bunch of coconuts painted red hang from the verandah of the quiet Kochi residence on Tower Road. Behind it is a mural by five young Kerala artists: Harisankar Muraleedharan, Athul P., John Martin, Affin Anu Singh, and Sudharsana B. Shenoy. Titled Dhesham, it picks out vignettes of their lives in dark red.

As you walk in, the scene shifts to Goa, with a stunning okmus displayed at the entrance. Kelekar shares that designer Savio Jon created the ceremonial red and white robe (worn by pallbearers in the Procession of Saints during Lent) with satin, velvet and lace, and a pussybow at the collar, specially for the event. Next come the trio of rooms where the full “story” unfolds, cocooned by Asian Paints Royale’s red repertoire — in bold stripes on the walls and chevron-esque patterns on the ceiling.

Savio Jon’s okmus, with satin, velvet and lace