CitySpinning

Recipes for Urban Conversations @ 1 shanthi road

Prayas Abhinav — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 07:53:23 +0000

At Recipes for Urban Conversation we wish to come together and share individual experiences with making and organising art in the public sphere from a local and global perspective.

We’re interested in the difficulties, successes, the short and long term effects and reactions, contradictions and consequences, and would like to try to condensate these experiences to a singular recipe. This recipe does not aspire to be a guideline for developing art in public space, but rather – like every good recipe – to be an open list of ingredients and how they could be used. But since ingredients vary according to the region, and you might not always have a stove at hand, recipes are subject to persistent transformation depending on the cultural context. Suddenly what started as a bread topped with tomato, cheese and leftovers, will come back being a rizzi pizza.

In this sense we would like to gather your ingredients and their usage and draw conclusions from everybody’s trial and error in the public kitchen.

It is being initiated by CitySpinning, KUNSTrePUBLIK (Skulpturenpark Berlin_Zentrum) and 1Shanthi Road.

The first RECIPE WRITING SESSION was on the 22nd December, at 16:00 p.m. at 1 shanthi road, recipes written by the participants will be uploaded to the website soon.

Say hello to the new site!

Prayas Abhinav — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 03:21:37 +0000

The new CitySpinning website is now open! Old posts and images are being imported slowly, so things might be a bit rough right now.

A lot of new projects and collaborations, which have gone unannounced so-far will now be put up here.

Thanks to Arpita Kapoor, Akshay Surve, Jayesh Gohel and myself (ha!) for making this possible! More soon…

City At Siege @ 1 shanthi road

Prayas Abhinav — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 02:59:20 +0000

Madhu D’s project at CitySpinning was shown at the 1 shanthi road gallery on the 28th and 29th (November 09).

The show, called “City At Siege” was a part of Suresh Jayram’s curatorial programme on art engaging with issues around Bangalore City’s development and was the first collaboration between CitySpinning and #1 Shanthi Road.

Some photographs of the show:

Madhu D @ CitySpinning: walking through change and resistance

Prayas Abhinav — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 05:09:49 +0000

Madhu D.

Madhu .D was away from Bangalore for six months and when he returned he couldn’t recognize his city. “The accelerated change and erasures are inevitable here, the city seems like a construction site, a battle ground of change and resistance, loss and hope. The unplanned chaos is unnerving; the change in landscape has left us with only real estate as a promise for the future. This is visual response to the absurdity of a city that is at siege, the moaning of loss and the mocking of a city that seems to be waking up late and has been caught napping.”

He has been in town for a few weeks and I met him co-incidentally near the Vishweshwarya Science Museum and we got talking. He described the following project to me and I invited him to do it as part of CitySpinning and Openspace India’s engagement with Bangalore city.

Project sketch:

The above structure was made and carried around across Bangalore as a part of a performance. Some of the photographs strung up on the structure are:

Some pictures of the action:

Some pictures of the exhibition at 1 shanthi road:

Documentation of the performance was be exhibited at 1 shanthi road on the 28th November 09.

Reciprocating Memories: invited projects at the POROUS CITY site in Thippasandra

Prayas Abhinav — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 11:02:54 +0000

Porous City @ Thippasandra invited artists and architects from Bangalore to respond to the site with project concepts. The following projects were developed across conversations with the artists, relating their projects to the space, context and the curatorial theme (to read more about these visit this post).

A summary of the invited projects and some images of each follows:

Places I Like II

16th to 20th September 09

Places I like, was a unique photo exhibition, presented by the Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan Bangalore. It comprised the outcome of an intensive workshop for Bangalore photo enthusiasts conducted by German photographer Stefan Koppelkamm, whose own photos were also exhibited under the title Ortszeit/Local Time at the Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan.

The objective of this workshop was to define the personal criteria that determine the »quality of life« in a city. The focus was more on the routine and normal, rather than the unusual. Social aspects of the city – neighbourliness, the presence of smaller stores and cottage industries – that are not immediately discernible to outsiders were more important than outstanding architecture or excellent design.

The current exhibition is a small selection of the original exhibition. Tailor made for the venue.

The places portrayed in this exhibition are as diverse as the city itself: They include bustling markets or shopping centres such as KR market, secluded and peaceful areas such as the Someshwara Temple in Ulsoor, Charles Correa’s Jeevan Bima Nagar One of the photographers portrayed his favourite hangouts, the famous Koshy’s in St. Marks Road.

Participating photographers:

>> ANIRUDDHA GHOSH: KOSHY’S
>> JYOTHY KARAT: AROUND CITY MARKET
>> KUSUM DHAR PRABHU: SOMESHWARA TEMPLE
>> PEEYUSH SEKHSARIA: JEEVAN BIMA NAGAR

Some pictures of the exhibition:

12 ►

Crack It

12th to 20th September 09

Artists: Markus Tauber and Dina Boswank

Artist’s statement (text by Markus Tauber): Can an island for children be created in Bangalore. Developing a playground with children for children.

- Questions

Where children can find places of safe heaven in a high dense city like Bangalore?
What kind of places of refuge do children need? What is the nature of these places?
What does it mean to give children – rich or poor- a home in a fast changing town like Bangalore? (Home is understood as an abstract quality that depends on many conditions outside the physical structure itself)
Do people and children in Bangalore live more and more socially isolated -especially in the outskirts of the town?
What is the childhood like under different social conditions? When the childhood ends and adult life begins? Do children have to work or do they have to learn the whole day? When do children have to start their career according to their patents opinion? Which part of the day is free for the child’s own activity, for playing etc.?

- Activities (summary by Prayas):

Dina and Markus developed a story together with the children from the neighbourhood. Then they made many of the characters from the story into small clay objects.
Then they went to the park across the POROUS CITY site and with rope and newspaper created a installed landscape of the story they had written along with the children and the parents of the neighbourhood. The installation of the new playground was temporary and was dismantled after a day. No special permission was needed to put up the structures in the park.

Some Photographs:

Old Hindi Film Song Stories

August 22nd 09

Artists: Maraa (http://maraa.in)

Introduction (Text by Maraa): Old Hindi film songs can never go out of style! Memories of growing up and stories of songs from 1958 (or 1965 or 1973), memories of stars and films, pretty faces and emotions, memories of listening to it over and over on radio… memories of the cities and towns and countrysides one grew up in… and for some others, memories of their mothers and fathers, brothers and uncles sampling and relishing these wonderful melodies Here’s the chance and space to share your old hindi song story!

Summary: The event saw an enthusiastic mix of old hindi film music enthusiasts from the city and some from the neighbourhood come together and share music, stories and trivia. A few spontaneous singing sessions happened as well. Members of some virtual networks which are involved with hindi film music also came and appreciated what the act of physical meeting up added.

Some photographs:

Palaver

4th to 6th September 09

Artist: Dina Boswank

Artist’s statement (Text by Dina Boswank): Come whisper, talk, shout, yell, rustle, smirk, susurrate, backbite, laugh, chatter and twitter. In some months there will live new inhabitants in this house. Their noises, laughters and words will be hearable through ventilation shafts, windows and doors. Yet, they are fictitious ghostly voices. But in these moments when the unfinished building will be a place for various people to meet and create a public space, the sonic ambiance will hopefully change. The installation plays with both imaginations – an atmosphere of overlaying and not clearly locatable noises and voices will be there to listen to and is as well created by the people itself.

Palaver used a nice child toy – a tin can telephone. But instead of using metal cans there were 15 plastic buckets, as used in every Indian household, spread over the place. Strings connected all of them, so that you could hear the echo of words spoken into one of them at every single bucket.

A network of ear conches and mics crosses both levels. Everyone could whisper, scream, sing quietly or ask in each bucket and react on the voices of other people he could understand.

Some photographs:

Fourth Cross

18th September 09

Artists: Srishti Theatre Group

Fourth Cross was a site-specific play. Artists notes:

“Be careful where you step in this ruin. Things have happened here before. They say, “the house took them.” An interactive mystery with surreal characters brought together by tales of old broken down house.

Some photographs:

Rewind Replay, playing forgotten games, 3rd-9th September 09

Prayas Abhinav — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 04:58:35 +0000

The idea for Rewind Replay was shared by Deepak Srinivasan at Maraa and Rashmi Gopal. Deepak took me along to meet Rashmi and after talking, playing and drinking tea together, we decided to host these playing sessions.

Then Meeta and Pallavi met Rashmi, set the dates and the got the playing sessions happening.

When: 3rd to 9th September, 5:00-7:00 p.m.

Facilitation: Pallavi Chander, Meeta Jain and others

Introductory note (by Meeta): Navakankari, Choka bara, Aadu huli aata still rings a familiar bell to many inhabitants of Bangalore. These were the broad games that still exist as living traditions in many parts of the state but are fast disappearing from the world of a typical urban kid. Often these were played in outdoor and semi outdoors spaces. The underlying grid gets drawn onto the available ground which soon transforms to becoming a fascinating landscape of entities like seeds, shells, dices, stones, beads et all , traversing it till the game gets over.

By employing the simple means for these games as the use of the” available” and the “natural’, lends us a potential to inculcate a certain sensibility over and above its pure leisure value. The children will revisit their neighborhood and search for varied materials to create their own means to play these games. Bringing these games back we also relook and reinforce the idea of play amongst groups younger and older alike, as an act of connecting in outdoors and common spaces. Later this can also lead to inhabitants appropriating/fashioning their parks and other common zones to include these games as footprints translated onto the terrain.

Photographs of Rewind Replay:

CitySpinning in Time Out Bangalore, August 09

Prayas Abhinav — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 05:41:50 +0000

The current issue of Time Out Bangalore carries a story by Jaideep Sen on the numerous community-art projects in the city which engage with public spaces in different ways. It features a lot of CitySpinning’s ongoing work, especially the invitation I and my friends had extended earlier this year to artists and architects to visualize mobile cultural spaces for Bangalore. The proposals short-listed were then part of an exhibition in July. The story also mentions Spirited Caravans, the collaborative form which the mobile space effort has taken and the ongoing camp at Thippasandra.

Read the story here: link or download it here.

Other projects featured in the story are Jaaga, Blind Boys and also Protospace (a co-working space I have initiated with Meeta Jain).

Mathinahalli: Playing With Stories, a festival of exchange from 26-30 August 09

Prayas Abhinav — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 01:58:57 +0000

WHEN: 26-30th August 09

Mathinahalli: playing with stories was a festival of exchange and mutual gestures designed to document the neighbourhood’s stories about childhood, play and the city at large. These stories will help in capturing the evolution and dynamism in the way the residents of the neighbourhood have played in the spaces around them across generations.

At Mathinahalli, visitors could eat (choco cookies and lemonade), get quick beauty fixes (hair braiding, temp tattoos, face painting), get themselves sketched, learn craft and art skills and audition for a film in exchange for sharing their stories and experiences. The interest was in creating an archive of stories from the neighbourhood which dealt with play and playspaces. My attempt was to create this archive in a way which also served as a demonstration of mechanisms of intangible exchange, barter and gift economies.

Concept: Prayas Abhinav (with numerous contributions from the particpants of Eating Value)

Facilitation: Prayas Abhinav, Tanvi Srivastava and Alisha Panjwani

Some photographs of Mathinahalli (from 26-30 August 09):

12 3 4 5 6 ►

Eating Value: exchange economics in the neighbourhood

Prayas Abhinav — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 01:58:09 +0000

The Eating Value workshop happened at the Porous City camp at a construction site in Thippasandra. Eating Value was a way of opening up concepts of the economy, value and entrepreneurship for children through food, exchange and storytelling.

The workshop in-turn led to Mathinahalli: Playing With Stories, a festival of exchange from 26-30 August 09 at the same site.

Some photographs of day 1: archiving neighborhood stories:

Some photographs of day 2: imagining exchanges

Stepping into Thippasandra, expanding the porous city

Prayas Abhinav — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 05:54:03 +0000

The physical act of occupying a vacant construction site in a residential neighborhood is seen like setting up a basecamp in a forest,

ACT 1: cleaning, clearing
ACT 2: fencing, bridging
ACT 3: locating water and energy source
ACT 5: space marking elements , green veil, installing the space kit

During this exercise of habitation we also intend to explore what a concrete columnar structure offers in terms of pure physical space experience, and the number of ways one can use and humanize it.

Actors: Meeta Jain, Krishna Aiyar and Prayas Abhinav

Some photographs: