SO THAT AFFECTION FOR THE CITY ENDURES (Ver 1.2)

Shamsher Ali, Suraj Rai

Material: Circuit boards (Mother boards, Switches, Computer Cards, Key Boards, LAN cards, RAMs, SMPS), CPU fans, wires, speakers, microphone, adapters, props, lights.
Year: 2010

It's almost impossible to remove parts from a functioning electronic system, though the possibilities of going on adding to the system to make it grow remain infinite. That's also how a city builds itself – through constant additions, replacements, replenishments. There is no point of origin, or centre, or unit through the repetition of which it has been built. Each part is a cosmos in itself, perfect, but the activation of each part happens through its alignment, and continuous realignment, with all the rest. A fragile built form of life gets accretively constituted. This is the city thinking. It is in a storm, and post-storm, together. It requires the force of our look so as to accelerate.

(photo: Vidyun Sabhaney)

THOUSANDS OF WORDS

Gaigongmei Gangmei, Kriti Gupta, Niha Masih

Material: Digital print on photo paper
Year: 2009- 2010

Etching a city through photographs becomes a part of the process of collecting memories. The city as a ferris wheel, constantly in motion, all lit up.  The city as a work in progress, endlessly constructing and deconstructing itself. The city as a superstructure of concrete and love notes…

Each photograph in itself is a word carrying many meanings. Putting together  images in diverse patterns and sequences, is both challenging as well as exciting. It offers the space to create – add layers, subtract meaning and generate multiple ways of looking at the city.

A photograph speaks a thousand words. When you put together hundreds of photographs, each speaking a thousand words, what happens?

Engagement with images has limitless possibilities. We invite you to go beyond the visual limits as an audience. Look at the images, our stories, touch the photographs, stick notes on them, even take some away, but do leave some in return :)

Additional photographs by:
Carole Dieterich
Coline Garre
Ektaa Malik
Javed Sultan
Shariq Naqvi
Gaurav Shukla
Parikishit Singhal

PLUSH AS DUST

Iram Ghufran, Amitabh Kumar
Material: Dust, plastic zip locked packets, specimen tray
Year: 2010

Dust settles. Treating the entire city with an honest equanimity. It covers everything. Thin and thick layers of dust, tiny and large particles, fragile but stubborn, marking time, witness to the experiences of space. Dust carries with it stories and anecdotes, traces and patterns, rumours and reports.

We have been scraping dust off objects and surfaces of built forms across the city. This act of gathering has created a practice of collecting, labeling, accumulating, cataloguing and mapping. Our collection of dust samples has only just begun, our questions to dust have yet to be articulated.

The anatomy of dust carries the history of ourselves and the city we inhabit. Perhaps it will reveal its secrets to the dust collectors, perhaps not.

Acknowledgment: With many thanks to Jeebesh Bagchi and Goutam Ghosh for conversations, and to Bhagwati Prasad, Gaigongmei Gangmei and Niha Masih for being there when we needed them most.

PINK MOUNTAIN

Goutam Ghosh

Material: Face massage cream, vaseline petroleum jelly, transparent thread, black plastic sheet,transparent pipe, nylon cosmetic hair, soot, shaving foam, drip syringe and drainage pipe
Year: 2010

The sun rises above the....factory at the outskirts of Delhi.

It is 49 degrees Celsius.

A "thirsty crow" flies overhead.
Its shadow is reflected on the water tanks stored at the edge.

A skin hangs inside the factory.
The heat dissolves the fat, Vaseline, 
petroleum gel, pink facial massage cream.

A pipe flushes out the substance.

A continuous process, beauty goes
down
the
drain.

The factory supplies beauty to the city.
Fair, milky-white, blemish-less.

Once again the crow flies, following the path of a speeding truck.
It finds itself in a jungle, at the edge of the city.
Where a man chases a wild pig,

He catches it.
It dies.

And slowly a pink mountain rises in the jungle,
which is slowly dismantled and taken to the factory.

The crow wonders if it’s the last pig in the jungle...

PAPER TXT MESSAGES FROM KASHMIR

Alana Hunt

Material: paper
Year: 2009-2010

In December 2009 almost 1000 paper txt msgs were distributed throughout Kashmir, in response to the Indian government’s ban on pre-paid mobile phone services in the region citing reasons of security. Virtually overnight over 400,000 mobile phone users – people conducting business, college students, families, distanced lovers – were left without means of telecommunication. Through the tongue-in-cheek distribution of an “alternative communicative tool” dejected pre-paid subscribers were invited to write a “paper-txt-msg” to anyone real or imagined, about anything they would like to write in a text message but were suddenly unable to do so.

The paper txt msgs moved between people’s hands in different ways and different places, with almost 150 eventually finding their way back to Delhi to form part of the current exhibition. Hopefully, this will develop into a small publication sometime down the track.

This project would not have been possible without the help of Suvaid, Suhail, Fayaz, Tanveer, Mubaishra, Irshad, Ishtiyaq and Riyaz. Many warm thanks.