A few weeks ago, our Sunday was spent painting clay pots that we purchased from the nearby Dharavi neighbourhood of Khumbarwada, which is only a five minute walk from the Dharavi Shelter and the Transit Camp.

From some of our small donations that we have received up to this date, we managed to buy some pots, paints, brushes and wire. The children from the Shelter organised themselves into groups and painted the clay pots producing some incredible patterns and designs. A local resident then came in to help us hang the pots in the entrance patio of our Shelter and at the same time we began painting the bricks on the entrance wall in the patio.

This activity was one of a series of activities we are want to carry out to transform the Shelter and develop it into an incredible and beautiful space for art, creativity, exchange and learning.

The following images have some more of our plans to convert the remaining space we have surrounding the existing structure. We have included approximate costs for each of these activities.

Your contributions are most welcome!

A locality is not simply a site, place or neighbourhood. It is a process that involves the inhabitant, the life-long resident and the passer-by who make it what it is through their active engagement, give it shape through social history, enrich it with meaning and symbols and argue and conflict over its future. This understanding is integral to URBZ’s vision of a user-generated city, since that is the only kind of city we know. Localities are central to our work.

We get invited to new places, we travel to them just to spend a few days, we choose to live in them at different points of time, but either way, we get  involved deeply. Since the people who connect with us and the worlds they live in are often so organically joined ,  that bonds form with both, through each other. URBZ sees itself as carrying places with it wherever  it goes -  through its ideas, concerns and practices.

We see localities, places and neighbourhoods in terms of the scale of our particular activity. We work in various parts of Mumbai, including Dharavi, Khotachiwadi and Crawford Market. We are also doing work in Goa, Tokyo and Geneva. Our team members and friends illuminate their locations and flag us to get involved, periodically. Our site geotags all that is done in the process and allows everyone to navigate across the board, get involved with places, no matter where they are presently located.

As more cities, towns and villages become part of URBZ’s sphere of infleunce through different perspectives, practices and concerns, the more exchanges take place across them, through workshops and online communication. Since locations are indeed all about making them, they have their own identities, but they also change and morph, look alike, become vastly different and keep feeding off each other’s experiences all the time. User generated cities are what places already are. For URBZ, the thrill is in working with users as they go about their business of generating them.

Please use the left side menu for more information about the localities we are involved with.

Shimokitazawa: A continuation of the spirit of the Urban Typhoon workshop 2006, this team explores one of the most artistic and fun-loving part of Tokyo.

http://www.vimeo.com/5692330
Road Rage in Shimokitazawa