The URBZ MASHUP Mumbai was automated by an enthusiastic bunch of creative urbanists from Mumbai and around the world. They mixed and matched their experiences to re-locate these old neighbourhoods within a contemporary context through their own histories and experiences.
They decoded the by-lanes of Chor Bazaar and re-arranged them in an alternative map that respected the flea-market’s self-made rules. They connected its grammar to markets from Goa and elsewhere.
They suggested signposts and made new maps that gave legitimacy to the informality of Abdul Rehman Street.
They made toys inspired by roadside knick-knack sellers and hawked them for older images, photographs and memories.
They cast creative projections beneath the JJ Flyover that snakes through the neighbourhood like a gigantic beast and opened up possibilities inspired from New York – possibilities that included performance and alternative uses.
They transformed the walls of Khotachiwadi into canvases for painting dreamscapes inflected by Byzantine, Mexican and popular art.
They walked through the labyrinthine Bhuleshwar and coined words, phrases and narratives to describe the experience that coalesced into new meanings by different users.
They documented the existential crisis of Crawford market that is trying to reinvent itself and suggested alternative ways of doing so – by mashing up the internal logic of the market with its new aspirations.
They figured out that ‘Bazaarchitecure’ was the main motif of the formal-informal market-dense neighbourhood such as the Municipal C and D wards which incorporates the ‘Mashup Area’ and suggested new policy frameworks for their future.
They were invited to walk into a living heritage of ‘Old Bombaye’ – Edward Talkies and managed to capture a World-War II-style cinematic experience that co-exists in a perfect Mashup moment with a contemporary multiplex down the road.
They focused on the patterns made by the shadows of the thousand odd users of the lanes and captured the busy street-life through a refracted photographic gaze.
Some of the output was exhibited at the Girgaum Catholic Club in Khotachiwadi on November 1st – the final day of the Mashup.
We are grateful to Art India Magazine for having sponsored the printing of the output for the exhibition.
The press covered the event with pithy one-liners. ‘Whose City is it anyway?’, ‘Heritage Hunt’, ‘The Great Mumbai Mashup’, ‘How to Make your own Mumbai’ and ‘Mumbai – Tailor Made’.
A full report of the workshop will soon be available on the site. Meanwhile, you can start browsing the mashup’s output here. More images on the URBZOO Flickr page.
March 28th, 2010 at 3:18 am
[...] between the less intensively developed urban interior and its active, increasingly corporate, edges.The Mumbai MASHUP! | URBZThe URBZ MASHUP Mumbai was automated by an enthusiastic bunch of creative urbanists from Mumbai and [...]