Article Published in MINT/Wall Street Journal: Wed, Nov 25 2009
Written by Aparna Piramal Raje
Can the combination of art and academia nudge citizens into being more aware of their immediate environments? Certainly, this was the hope behind two recent exhibitions, Informal Cities and Mumbai Mashup, the latter part of an international urban research project called Urbz Mashup in Mumbai.
Curated by independent, multidisciplinary teams of international academics, urban planners and artists, the goal in both cases was to probe urban development issues through photographs, drawings, video art and narrative text, making these accessible for the citizen.
Partho Mukhopadhyay, senior fellow, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, and an urbanization expert, endorses this approach: “The really nice thing about Urbz was that it mobilized the energy of young architects who are still trying to apply the techniques they’ve learnt to the city around them. Consequently, you get a much more multi-angular perspective, where each individual sees the strengths and the weaknesses of the city. By contrast, (the) government sees only the form of the city, looking at the city as static putty clay models, not as living organisms.”
November 29th, 2009 at 5:05 am
heyy thats was “the” best thing we did during the workshop…cheers to stephany.. sourabh.. pratsi.. tarun n dier whole gang!!…