From Kolam to Digna: Why floor drawings deserve to be seen as art

Growing up in a South Indian household, kolams were a part of my daily life. It was considered inauspicious to leave the house before the entrance was adorned with a kolam at dawn. On most days, it is a simple, quick one. On special occasions however, the kolams are elaborate and colourful. I would see them everyday and so they became invisible, an afterthought. 

It is only when you stop and really look that you realise how much meaning sits in these everyday patterns. At a recent conversation around floor drawings and art by the MARG Foundation (Modern Architectural Research Group) — a forum for research on Indian art — kolams took centrestage . The catalyst for this conversation was the new volume of the foundation’s magazine, On Painted Ground which looked at floor art not as decoration, but as practices shaped by ritual, memory and everyday life.