A Scene in Scarlet: How Homegrown Creative Coco Balluci Embodied the Oracle from Tagore’s Play for Olio Jewellery Editorial
Homegrown Creative Coco Balluci Captures How Olio Jewellery’s Designs Mirror the Spirit of Tasher Desh’s Oracle
The Oracle - the concept itself- is steeped in divine complexity. It is a figure of enigma and unfathomable power with a connection to the world beyond the perception of the everyday human being. Growing up in Kerala, my idea of the oracle was the imagery of ‘Velichapaad’ that was shown in Malayalam movies. While they were normal people most of the time, they transformed into something far greater, channelling the divine through a human form when lost in the daze of their reverence. The visual language associated was often of scarlet red - that of intense emotions - passion, rage, love, and most of all, power. The same emotions are what is evoked in the editorial series Oracle.
The photo series conceptualised, styled, and embodied by Calcutta-based creative Coco Balluci for homegrown jewellery label Olio has recently made waves in the fashion community. Bathed in red lights, donning attire in scarlet, with their hair, braided long with blood red roses as accents and adorned in Olio’s South Asian rooted, contemporary jewellery, the photo series was strikingly beautiful in its theatricality. When I started to read more, to better understand the nuances of the editorial series, the larger-than-life energy it radiated made more sense to me.
The photoseries was inspired by the revolutionary play Tasher Desh (The Land of Cards), a satirical work by Rabindranath Tagore. It was written during the second Civil Disobedience Movement, and spoke to the need for breaking from the regimens laid upon a people. The play allegorically referred to its fictional land as being one akin to card games, with strict rules and chances laid out. For the times, it was groundbreaking in how it proposed ideas of challenging societal rigidity and advocating for freedom, individuality, and creative expression. The story follows a prince and his companion, who are shipwrecked and arrive in a land where order and conformity dominate, with its inhabitants adhering strictly to predetermined roles and rules. But the prince, set on his path by an enigmatic Oracle that visits his dreams, inspires the people of Tasher Desh to break free from these constraints and embrace spontaneity, fluidity, and change.
The play blended elements of satire, absurdism, and modernism with Tagore’s profound philosophy. It critiqued colonial oppression while celebrating liberation and self-expression. Women played a pivotal role in the transformation in the play, with their characters symbolizing awakening and agency, as the first ones to open to the winds of change. Through their participation in breaking the rules of the card kingdom, they embodied progressive views on gender and the necessity of female empowerment in societal reform.
Coco Balluci’s photoseries, ‘Oracle’, created in collaboration with Olio, reimagines the character of the Oracle — the mystical guide in Tasher Desh who catalyses the prince’s journey towards liberation. Drawing from the play’s themes of rebellion and transformation, the series fuses traditional South Asian aesthetics with contemporary jewellery design. The Oracle’s ethereal, otherworldly presence is captured in Balluci’s visuals, reflecting their role as a harbinger of change. In the caption, the creative has written “The Oracle's significance lies in its role as a symbol of enlightenment and the power of self-realization. It encourages the prince to break free from the confines of his luxurious yet stifling existence and embark on a journey of self-discovery. The Oracle's cryptic message prompts the prince to question the nature of his reality and ultimately leads him to a path of freedom and adventure.”
Channelling this figure of transformation, Coco Balluci has paired Olio’s jewellery, inspired by south Asian heritage and history, but made for the modern sartorialist, complements this narrative. The Calcutta-based creative team has drawn heavily from their roots, to create this series that captures the spirit of freedom and the breaking of rigid boundaries that Tasher Desh so profoundly advocates. Photographed by Anika Saha, with makeup and hair by Sanon Jana and art direction crafted by Amit, it is relevant to the days that we live in, confined to the limitations of what we think our lives ought to be like, and seeking to break free from it to embrace joy and freedom.
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