Provenance

Provenance is a film of cinematic scope that traces the global trade in furniture in reverse, beginning with pieces from the Indian city of Chandigarh. Conceived in the 1950s by architects Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, Chandigarh’s modernist architecture features original furniture—tables, chairs, settees, and desks—designed specifically for the interiors of the buildings. In recent years, these pieces have appeared at auction houses worldwide, achieving record prices. The film opens with the Chandigarh furniture in present-day settings such as New York apartments, London townhouses, Belgian villas, and Paris salons, where collectors display them. It then moves backward through the furniture’s journey: from auction sales and preview exhibitions to photography for catalogues, restoration efforts, cargo shipping containers, and Indian ports. The film concludes in Chandigarh itself, a city marked by a sense of entropy.