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:

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Some pictures of the opening:

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The exhibition system you see in the pictures has been designed by Meeta Jain at MapBee. It is a portable system which can be dismantled and be moved around the city across various open and partially open venues. The next site for exhibition is being discussed and will be announced soon.

Coming up in the next few days:

• a statement summarizing the outcome of the Mobility and Culture Think Tank 09 (MCTT09)
• some videos and audio recording of MCTT09 and the Spirited Caravans exhibition
• a schedule of the forward going process and the upcoming publication

Dates

From 2:30 to 7:30 p.m., 12th to 20th July, 2009

As unknown, invisible people, is it possible for us to imagine the city in a way, which is less alienating and fragmented? The exhibition looks at the role mobile spaces can play in doing this.

A showcase of design proposals for a mobile cultural space sent by artists and architects form around the world in response to an invitation extended by CitySpinning in January 2009. This process was initiated to understand some ways of using the existing infrastructure in the city in parasitic and symbiotic ways for a decentralized cultural program which is in the midst of where people live, work and play. As part of this process a mobile cultural space called the DOT is being designed.

Spirited Caravans is curated by Prayas Abhinav at CitySpinning [http://cityspinning.org] and designed by Meeta Jain from MapBee [http://mapbee.tumblr.com]. Quintessence Creations Pvt. Ltd.

A preview of the exhibition will be on view for the think-tank participants. The public opening of the exhibition is on the 12th of July at 4:00 p.m.

Concept

Does the city move or do you move around in the city? Maybe, its both. Our cities have become spaces which exude an impersonal, dry and functional energy. To feel at home here, we try to own a patch here and there to hide away, to console ourselves.

This glass, concrete and trash city in the process of becoming, has amassed an infrastructure, a grid which thinks its going to be there forever. Building possibilities which parasitically draws on this to create pockets of parallel realities, has been an interest shared by many people and groups throughout history (gypsies, street performers, circuses, melas). This exhibition proposes some ways of creating these parallel realities. These ways acknowledge the histories of this process but still position them in the world as it as now, with us being the way we are.

The exhibition has fantasies, fictions and journalistic accounts of seeing the city grow out of its indifference and comfortably wear her neighbourhoods as if they were something specific, the people living there having real names, motivations, dreams and aspirations which can be mapped. Spirited Caravans sees the city in a mood which is celebratory, uninhibited, musical and new (but old at the same time).

It is a good chance for cynics of all descriptions to forever lose their cynicism within clouds of possibility. It will give all of us ideas and energy to act upon them as well as maybe unshackle our imaginations from the city map, which reduces everything to a line and dot to actually be one of the dots and change the map forever in our memory.

Visitors to the exhibition will be able to comment on aspects of the proposals, annotate in the margin, doodle on the side to guide and contribute to our design process.

Spirited Caravans features design proposals by:

• Amrita Ravimohan & Ekta Idnany [Mumbai, India],
• Azeer Attari & Dominic Anthony [Mumbai, India],
• Benoît Maubrey [Brück, Germany],
• Elina Moreau Braunstein [Sydney,Australia],
• Harry Westbrook & Nash Colundular [London, UK],
• Heron-Mazy Studio (J.P. Maruszczak & Roger Connah  Asst: Ryan Manning) [USA],
• Jelena Grujic and Lea Skrinjar [Novi Sad & Belgrade, Serbia],
• Jimini Hignett [Amsterdam, The Netherlands],
• Joao Caria Lopes [Lisbon, Portugal],
• Joseph Choma [New York, USA],
• Miguel Valério [Amsterdam, The Netherlands],
• Nick Tobier (EverydayPlaces) [Detroit & Ann Arbor, USA],
• Petar Bojovic & Slobodan Krsmanovic [Belgrade, Serbia],
• Shyamanta Shekhar, Harshavardhan, Srinivas, Sujay Kuncham, Vishnuvardhan [India],
• Stewart Hicks & Allison Newmeyer [Illinois, USA]

Where?

Protospace Bangalore
No. 6 MR Garden, 2nd cross KEB Layout,
Sanjay Nagar,
Bangalore 560094
Karnataka
India

Map:

Thanks:
Priyanka Kodikal (design of the invites, poster and graphics)
Malvika Tegta (PR and letting people know)
(more names to be added)