Urban Typhoon, Khirkee, New Delhi, was held between November 9 to 16, 2010. This was the 3rd edition of the Urban Typhoon, organized by URBZ in partnership with KHOJ.

The report for the workshop is out! It can be downloaded via these links:

http://urbanlab.org/UrbanTyphoonKhirkee2010.pdf (low resolution – for web)
http://urbanlab.org/UrbanTyphoonKhirkee2010-highres.pdf (high-resolution – for print)

For the URBZ Team, and for all the participants this is a moment to celebrate and reflect.

The focus of each Urban Typhoon is the bringing together of local residents with invited participants – who are interested in the particular neighbourhood – to brainstorm collectively and produce new projections, alternative visions, ideas and solutions for the neighbourhood. The Urban Typhoon can only happen when the practitioners are invited by residents or groups active in a neighbourhood. They are usually connected to a cause or issue that the residents are trying to solve. In Shimokitazawa (Tokyo) and Dharavi’s Koliwada (Mumbai), the residents where opposing a redevelopment project by the authorities which would have reduced the residents autonomy and threatened the identity of the neighbourhood. In Khirkee we were invited by KHOJ, a leading art collective, in the context of their ongoing community arts initiative. Although KHOJ was already dialoguing and working with residents, it was harder than elsewhere to get residents involved before the workshop started. The Urban Typhoon Khirkee thus focused on establishing relationships and starting projects that Khoj could subsequently continue with the help of some of the workshop’s participants. This seems to have happened in different ways.

The fact that KHOJ is an artists collective was particularly significant. Art is central to the workshops. As long as art is defined in a way that includes collective engagements, as long as urban practitioners value the presence of creativity and imagination as fundamentals of living, art is far from incidental. Even in the past, the most successful projects were the one run by artists. We believe that artists often have a very creative way of engaging with the context and people. This is more important than the output. The output will be good if good relationships have been established. Artists and other creative practitioners are essential in an event like Urban Typhoon for these reasons.

We look at knowledge as something that encompasses expression, imagination and experience. Knowledge without these is only an abstraction. Subsequently, knowledge exchange happens at ALL levels in these workshops. Of course, there is also knowledge production. The Urban Typhoon produces new ways of looking at familiar places for residents. A new context puts the previous experience of the invited guests in a new perspective and allows them to get deeply immersed in an environment that they may have otherwise overlooked or ignored. They learn about the place and experiment with their practices. The most interesting knowledge creation happens when local residents and guests find a common ground to discuss local issues and understand how they are related to larger issues affecting everyone. When communication channels of this kind are opened and activated knowledge starts flowing both ways and new knowledge is produced through a creative process.

In each workshop, a local group’s involvement with the locality is extremely important – especially as they continue to engage with each other in real time and presence. Without the involvement of local groups the workshop becomes superficial. Local groups allow Urban Typhoon to connect with an ongoing history of the neighborhood, local activism or local interventions. It also allows activities and relationships that were started during the Urban Typhoon to continue afterward. This gives great meaning to the event. We were particularly happy to do this with Khoj, because we knew the team would make sure the activities continued and the relationships sustained.

The workshops are collaborative. As long as the projects and participants agree on collective authorship, with individuals and groups signing within their acceptable zones of comfort, whatever the arguments, discussions, conflicts and complexities that emerge are never a problem.

URBZ sees itself as a hackivists group who aims at understanding the complexities of the system (at the level of a neighbourhood in the case of Urban Typhoon) and plug-in “devices” (events, interventions, projects) that subvert the system and modify the output. This type of intervention draws its social meaning through inclusiveness and crowd-sourcing. It also confronts conflicts creatively.

Conflicts are part of the workshop at the levels of process and output. But they are never a hassle. They help generate fresh perspectives as we saw in this workshop too. What remains unsolved are not being able to put processes for follow up on certain projects that had high expectations into place. These include the road and sewage project.

In Khirkee it was harder to get local residents involved. And this therefore become the focus of the whole workshop: “how do we engage?” The insider/outsider problematic became larger than necessary mainly because of the doubts and guilt of some of the outsiders who feared that the workshop may become exploitative of the context. Through discussion, we would address this and engage the issues as meaningfully as possible. The larger proportion of artists also helped create a high quality output and presented it in a whole new way. We made it clear that no PowerPoint presentation should be used for the final day presentation and that they would need to take place in the street. This was a great success, which did produce nice connections with passersby and by stimulating many questions and discussions.

The workshop tried its best to be multilingual and inclusive. It valued co-creation between guests and local residents the most. Urban Typhoon’s methodology has always been one of inclusiveness, of other approaches and methods as well. Even if a participating team had a strongly top-down approach. This has happened in the past, especially with architects who often find it the hardest to connect with the community. We try not to be ideological about things. But in the end we can clearly see the type of output that has been produced through different approaches and our experience is that in the context of the Urban Typhoon, the teams which have been able to bring together people from different backgrounds and perspectives into common projects are the most innovative and successful ones.

At Khirkee, people across disciplines worked together in many projects. We only wish that more local residents would have joined the workshop from the beginning. Fortunately, the workshop came to them and integrated them in many different and creative ways.

In terms of follow-up we are very much looking forward to working with Khoj on specific project ideas that the workshop generated. A few participants have continued the work they have started during the workshop with the support of Khoj.

All the photos taken during the workshop are available here.

The report was compiled and designed by Karin Andersson.

The 3rd edition of the Urban Typhoon workshop is about to begin in Khirkee, New Delhi. This workshop follows the Urban Typhoon Shimokitazawa, Tokyo in 2006 and the Urban Typhoon Kholiwada-Dharavi, Mumbai in 2008. This is a good time to reflect on its purpose and methodology. These notes are aimed at all the participants of the Urban Typhoon Khirkee as well as anyone interested in the practice of participatory planning, community art and urban action-research initiatives in any part of the world.

1. The Urban Typhoon workshop was born in Shimokitazawa, Tokyo in 2006 through discussions with activists and academics who were looking for new forms of advocacy and participation based on local knowledge and cultural practices. The neighbourhood of Shimokitazawa was, and still is, threatened by the construction of a large speedway cutting across its dense urban fabric. Shimokitazawa, Koliwada-Dharavi and Khirkee are what we would refer to as 1) user-generated neighbourhoods, and 2) neighbourhoods in formation.

2. User-generated neighbourhoods are places where participatory development is already alive, even if un-self-consciously. The users are the residents, the shopkeepers, artisans, manufacturers and even visitors and other travelers. They all shape the neighbourhood in small ways, through their “practices of everyday life” and collectively make it alive. User-generated neighbourhoods are not a collection of architectural objects. Over time they develop their own character (or “spirit”) and respond to users in particular ways. They are often complex, contested, and threatened. Their users are typically deeply attached to them for personal reasons and accused of being dysfunctional and backward. We see user-generated neighbourhoods as ancient and futuristic at the same time. They ring a special cord with net-generation architectivists, urbanologists and other hackers and artists who see them as learning grounds for new social practices.

3. Neighbourhoods in formation are neighbourhoods that are being constantly developed and improved by their users. So-called “slums” and “informal settlements” often fall in this category. They stand in sharp contrast with master planned and mass developed settlements which have to be centrally managed and maintained and leave little scope for user’s intervention, outside of formal structures and bureaucratic processes. Neighbourhoods in formation derive their value through the way they are being used, not by the speculative market. Neighbourhoods in formation usually improve over time. When left to develop in their own terms, they often become popular destinations for cultural tourists and youth hunting for “authenticity” or a space outside the grid. Neighbourhoods in formation are typically portrayed as messy and dysfunctional by developers and the planning authorities, who see them as raw material for construction projects.

4. Participation can happen anywhere, when people feel the need to get involved with their social and physical environment. It is never as high as when all residents are simultaneously affected by a disaster that they must address collectively. More often than not, these disasters are man-made. Khirkee seems to be in permanent crisis, with roads being systematically flooded or destroyed and sewage spilling along the streets. Many initiatives have been taken by the residents and local organizations such as KHOJ. Many have failed, few have succeeded. Rather than proposing new participatory methods or “solutions”, we must understand what systems of participation already exist in Khirkee and how they can be used in the most effective ways.

5. Urban Typhoon workshops make sense only when they can be organized in partnership with a local group. In this case, KHOJ, which has been present and active in Khirkee for 12 years invited URBZ to organize a workshop. URBZ and KHOJ have been working together to prepare the workshop. KHOJ is bringing its experience of the neighbourhood, its local network and opens the possibility of continuing some of the projects that will be started during the workshop afterward. URBZ is bringing its experience in organizing participatory workshops, its global network and the enthusiasm of its team.

6. Participants come from Khirkee, other parts of Delhi, other cities and other countries. It is more difficult to get participants from Khirkee than from abroad. Locally, people are typically disillusioned, skeptical or busy. Registered participants on the other hand are often extremely motivated and full of goodwill. One of the main challenge for participants coming from other places will be to find respectful and constructive ways to engage with people in Khirkee. The workshop doesn’t offer a formula for participation. The equation with “the community” has to be invented by all participants individually and collectively. This is where creativity is most needed.

7. The “community” may not exist before we create it in some way and it is often invoked most concretely only in a collective process. Khirkee has many traditional communities, which may themselves be internally divided. The attempt of the  workshop is to bring together people from different parts of the neighbourhood and beyond to help the emergence of a new network of people through the process of working and brainstorming together. Such an event has to be understood as a creative one, which helps transform perspectives and brings shifts in perception and action. Community arts initiatives have often been trivialised by both, activists and artists. We feel that its is only through a process that evokes and works with the idea of the creative and the collective that major strides can be taken in both realms. The first as well as the final challenge is often simply about discovering a shared sense of purpose.

Nov 9-16, 2010 @ Khirkee Village in partnership with KHOJ.

Visit the Urban Typhoon Web page for more info.

REGISTER NOW!

November 9-16, 2010

In partnership with Khoj. With the support of Ford Foundation and the Norwegian Embassy. ‘KHOJ International Artists’ Association’ is an artist led alternative space for experimentation and international exchange based in India. Part of the global Triangle Arts Trust, KHOJ sees its role as an incubator for art and ideas, artistic exchange and dialogue in the visual arts.

The Urban Typhoon workshop invites artists, architects, activists and academics from all over the world to ideate with residents, grassroots groups and other users of Khirkee Village, New Delhi. The event aims at reclaiming the locality by collectively generating multiple ideas, visions and plans for its future.

During the week-long workshops all kinds of interventions and interactions will take place, stimulating debate, exchange and awareness. The workshop draws its energy and creativity from the involvement of local users, including business owners, housewives, children, teenagers, loiterers and other hoodies. It focuses on local participation and global engagement.

The workshop is documented throughout the week. The participants also produce all kinds of material, which is then uploaded on a user-generated Website. In addition, the output is translated into various installations, exhibitions, essays, festivals, architectural designs, urban plans and site-specific action, during and after the workshop. Its ultimate aim is to inform decision-makers on the aspirations and potential of Khirkee Village.

URBZ, has been conducting similar workshops in various places around the world including Shimokitazawa (Tokyo), Dharavi (Mumbai) and Galata (Istanbul).

The Urban Typhoon Khirkee (New Delhi) workshop is being organized in partnership with Khoj, a globally renowned artists collective based in that very neighbourhood. Khirkee is an ‘urban village’ in a city in fast forward mode, which may need to creatively reinvent itself if it is to preserve its identity in an increasingly alienating global context.

Khoj has operated from there for more than a decade and has initiated several projects, where artists have become urban practitioners projecting visions and revealing choices that formal actors may have overlooked.  In this partnership between Khoj and URBZ, we hope to organize an event that has a special significance to the world of urban engagement in which artists have a special role to play.

Participant Requirements:

The Urban Typhoon workshop is multicultural, multidisciplinary and a multimedia event. Students, urban planners, architects, designers, artists, sociologists, media artists, political activists, and anyone with a high motivation to work in urban spaces and willing to engage local communities for the week long duration of the workshop is welcome to join.

The objective is to produce creative alternatives for the future of a neighborhood threatened by limited official choices and imagination.

Please fill up the registration form, including a 100-word bio-note of yourself and a face-picture.

We will be in regular touch through e-mail after that.

Travel and boarding expenses are to be borne by the participants (so,don’t wait to make travel bookings! We will also make reservations at reasonable rates in local lodges and hotels to facilitate the process).