If you are in Switzerland in the next two days, don’t miss this presentation of the activities of the Dharavi Shelter. For updates join the Shelter’s fan page on Facebook.

ANNOUNCING THE NEXT URBAN TYPHOON!

Location: Khirkee Village, New Delhi
Date: November 9-16, 2010

In partnership with Khoj.

‘KHOJ International Artists’ Association’ is an artist led alternative space for experimentation and international exchange based in India.

Part of the global *Triangle Arts Trust <http://trianglearts.org>*, KHOJ sees its role as an incubator for art and ideas, artistic exchange and dialogue in the visual arts.

Ground level support for the workshop in New Delhi is being provided by Ford Foundation and the Royal Norwegian Embassy.

The Urban Typhoon workshop invites artists, architects, activists and     academics from all over the world to ideate with residents, grassroots groups and other users of Khirkee Village, New Delhi. The event aims at reclaiming the locality by collectively generating multiple ideas, visions and plans for its future.

During the week-long workshops all kinds of interventions and interactions will take place, stimulating debate, exchange and awareness. The workshop draws its energy and creativity from the involvement of local users, including business owners, housewives, children, teenagers, loiterers and other hoodies. It focuses on local participation and global engagement.

The workshop is documented throughout the week. The participants also produce all kinds of material, which is then uploaded on a user-generated Website. In addition, the output is translated into various installations, exhibitions, essays, festivals, architectural designs, urban plans and site-specific action, during and after the workshop. Its ultimate aim is to inform decision-makers on the aspirations and potential of Khirkee Village.

URBZ, has been conducting similar workshops in various places around the world including Shimokitazawa (Tokyo), Dharavi (Mumbai) and Galata (Istanbul).

The Urban Typhoon Khirkee (New Delhi) workshop is being organized in partnership with Khoj, a globally renowned artists collective based in that very neighbourhood. Khirkee is an ‘urban village’ in a city in fast forward mode, which may need to creatively reinvent itself if it is to preserve its identity in an increasingly alienating global context.

Khoj has operated from there for more than a decade and has initiated several projects, where artists have become urban practitioners projecting visions and revealing choices that formal actors may have overlooked.  In this partnership between Khoj and URBZ, we hope to organize an event that has a special significance to the world of urban engagement in which artists have a special role to play.

This is a video produced during the URBZ Mashup Workshop in Galata-Sishane, Istanbul by Jeanne Fouchet, Eléonore Boissinot and Deniz Üstem. It is a poetic introduction to the daily movements and sounds of an incredibly diverse neighbourhood, which like many others in Istanbul and throughout the world, is being transformed in fast-forward mode. This is happening both through an “organic” process of gentrification, as well as through a very deliberate and top down “renewal” process initiated by the metropolitan authorities.

It is without any nostalgia but with a clear artistic sensitivity and a deep sense of engagement that Jeanne, Eléonore and Deniz have portrayed Galata-Sishane as it is today. Regardless of how much the neighbourhood is transforming, the video also shows the “practices of everyday life” through which, residents, workers and visitors keep on producing its identity and making it a unique place in the world, which is their own, for a lifetime, a few years or a day.

See the project’s web page http://urbz.net/workshops/mashup/istanbul/output/picturingsounds/

We are still processing and uploading the output of the Istanbul Mashup Workshop, so stay tuned!

When coming into a community for the first time, neighborhoods can be akin to lines drawn in invisible ink. Sometimes, it seems like you have to proactively search out a community to see that different neighborhoods exist there.

Now, I’m not claiming to be an urban planner, a specialist in urban studies, an anthropologist, or anything of the kind. I’m an engineer. With, really, only two urban studies/anthropology classes under my belt. Admittedly, my courseload is dominated by problem sets, labs, small design projects, and case studies. Never, have I conducted fieldwork.

However, in undertaking this documentation project with Urbz for a little under three weeks, I’ve taken an interest in the definition of neighborhoods by different communities. And I find it very interesting how some neighborhoods are much easier to define than others.

To get a better idea of what I’m trying, I’m going to use Dallas as an analogy since I know it very well.

I have friends that live in Highland Park, Oak Cliff, Pleasant Grove, Greenville, South Dallas and so on. All these neighborhoods are in Dallas. They are part of the city. And when you write their address you still write Dallas, TX. But there’s a hierarchy—Dallas then North Dallas, South Dallas, East Dallas (no one says West Dallas, really) then specific neighborhood. North Dallas consists of Dallas from the Richardson boundary all the way until the edge of the city, no inner city Dallas included. And that’s pushing it. Within North Dallas, but separate from it, is Highland Park. For, if you live in Highland Park, you say, “I’m from Highland Park.” No one really calls that North Dallas. For Highland Park is separated from the rest of North Dallas through (roughly and not limited to) median income, socioeconomic status, culture, (arguably) race (too touchy, but it’s the elephant in the room). The lines of demarcation are clearly etched—you know if you’re part of Highland Park or not.

Now let’s look at a more common example.

Oak Cliff. It’s part of South Dallas. But do a lot of people know exactly where Oak Cliff starts and ends? Not really. Partly it’s because the surrounding neighborhoods share the same socioeconomic status, race (on a very general basis), slang, rough median income, neighborhood style, and culture. I’m from Oak Cliff, I’m from South Dallas is more readily lumped together and thus the lines are fuzzier.

That being said, it’s interesting to see that the residents of BMC, of Koliwada, of Municipal Chowl, and of other chowls primarily use Dharavi as their community of identification. However, after some interviews with a few persons in New Transit Camp, it’s interesting that some have said that they are from Dharavi and that those in Kholiwada, BMC, and other chowls are too far east to say they are from Dharavi and that they exist as their own neighborhood.

I can’t say that patterns seem to emerge on whatever standing or whatever detail. I’ve only been here for not even three weeks weeks. But I have noticed that people of New Transit Camp are hesitant to consider Koliwada and BMC and the surrounding chowls of the east as part of Dharavi. And that more families in Koliwada, BMC, and the surrounding chowls have called NTC a slum or a place where illegal residents reside. That is not to say that they say this with disdain. Or that I’m noting some tension. No. Not at all. That is just the language used.

I’ve also noticed that when prompted, it is a lot simpler for residents of NTC, Koliwada, BMC, and the surrounding chowls to identify New Transit Camp as a neighborhood than it was to draw the divisions between Kholiwada and BMC and the surrounding chowls.

It would be interesting to study how large or how small a specific neighborhood defines their community to be and to examine if any patterns emerge in how these spaces are defined (landmarks, streets, addresses, etc).