Caroline & Mumbai

torsdag 17 april 2008

90ft Road by night

We went out to map the 90ft Road by night. Starting at 8pm when the street's almost at it's busiest and most crowded with men, women and children. If we stopped to take notes or sketch it didn't take more than 10sec before we had a curious crowd surrounding us - wondering what we were doing.
2 boys 12year old Said and 12 year old Robinson followed us for a long time, sometimes explaining som things (for example Robinson went to see a movie about once a month) but for the most part just keeping us company.
All the way down to the 60ft Road crossing the athmosphere was good and the street was very much alive with almost all shops, foodstands and restaurants open.
After crossing 60ft Road we ran into a large crowd of people who just stood there staring. After a while I asked Robinson what was going on.

"Look, look in that window. The pink one"

Robinson said pointing at a window in a nearby 7 storybuilding. What I saw was something I hoped I would never get to see.
A woman had comitted suicide by hanging herself from the cealing.

What struck me the most was that the family didn't bother to cover the windows. In most cultures comitting suicide is something shameful, I'm not sure about hinduism or Islam.
For me it seemed more as lack of respect for the deceased, to let her hang there for everyone to see. Or was that what she wanted.. I'm not so sure.

Another thing, unlike the in culture where I come from in India it is ok to stare. And people stared, hundereds of them. After a while they started noticing our precense, it took a few seconds longer than usual, some of the people started saying to us "look, look suicide" like it was some kind of happening.
This experience gave me a really uncanny feeling that lasted a long time, still when I think about it. That night we got to see a totally different side of Dharavi than the happy curious kids that normally set the mood and athmosphere of each day.

Post Dharavi

Almost 3 weeks have past since we got back from Mumbai and Dharavi. A lot can be said about the workshop and this trip but one thing is sure, this was an experience I will not forget.

I've tried to tell people about these 3 weeks, but it's really difficult. Finding the essence of this trip. It feels like no matter how many pictures you show or how detailed you describe what happend it doesn't even come close to the real thing we experienced. But if I had to describe it short, maybe even with just one word it would be intense.
Intense in terms of smell, heat, desity, cultural differences, taste, noise, sound, visual impressions, emotional impressions... everything.

The same goes for the mapping workshop, it was intense. Trying to reach some what of an understanding of a place like this was certainly not easy and I'm still not entirely convinced about all the exercises, but still I think all of us learnt alot. Probably much more than one could see in the exhibition we did after 2 weeks of post producing the material we gathered in Dharavi. But I guess that's what happen when you put yourself in new and different situations. Many of the things that happend to us in this place were things that may have effected us more as private persons than architectural students and I think that is a good thing, in terms of the whole "growing as a human" part.. maybe.. or something like that.

Before we left for Mumbai a lot of my friend who had been to the city before said (in a cynical way) "3 weeks in Mumbai, ha! have fun, it's the worst city I've ever visited" For me, Mumbai may not be the most wonderful city in the world, but Dharavi is for sure one of the more interesting places I've been.
I wouldn't hesitate to go back.

torsdag 27 mars 2008

Building the slum

The two-day workshop with Daniele Pario Perra had very interesting intentions. An introduction to emergent urbanities and a first attempt trying to understand how it could work. Learning by doing. Unfortunately I think that two days were far from the time needed in order to make this workshop live up to its potential.

The very first thing you get to do starting the Architectural school at KTH in Stockholm is a one week workshop very similar to Daniele’s.
During the week groups collect rejected building material and things people have thrown away all over Stockholm. By the end of the week these materials are used to construct shacks in which the groups also spend one night.

When given a week there is more (needed) time to commit to the task and to really get engaged. For Daniele’s workshop getting into character of how it would be to be homeless in the Netherlands. Something I missed and felt I didn’t get the time to do.

Before starting the actual construction we (the group of 40 strong minded architectural students) spent far too long time trying to plan and agree of things we in the end had to change and adjust to the specific problems of the site and to the building materials we found. Far too long time trying to plan the unplanned…
But in the end I guess that was a lesson in itself, problem solving is always a good way of getting to know a group and if nothing more an interesting social experiment.

The thing I found most inspiring was the initial presentation of urban and other emergent designs of re-used materials. Unfortunately in our squatted settlement we never reached this level of detailing (with a few exceptions). In Dharavi where they make everything out of nothing everyday my inspiration tank was refilled. Perhaps it doesn’t inspire me in the actual way of producing new objects out of old but in the terms of a broader view of functionality in general.

Letter of motivation

Mind Body Space, Susanna Recchia 04-05.02.08

How does the body act in space?
How does the space change around our body?
--> How does body and space work together?

We spent two days doing different physical exercises using our bodies and all of our senses.
A way of getting in contact with your body, internal and external.
A way of getting in contact with the other people and bodies in the same space.

This picture for me represents on of the exercises where your personal sphere were entered and mixed with others. Eyes closed all of us moved around slowly in a defined area. You became very aware of both how you moved your own body but also how others moved around you and how you stared to move and work with one another without really knowing it.
For me it was a difficult experience. I like my personal space very much and didn’t appreciate other people constantly intruding during this exercise.

For me the most interesting exercise during these two days was when a number of persons quickly had to enter the defined space and stand in a way so that it related to one another. Interesting both how people reacted but also how the space became very different with different constellations. For example how the group could take charge of the space by taking a strong position in the middle as a unity or how the space almost took charge of the group if they spread out sticking to the borders.