STUDENTS’ BIENNALE 2018 | THE EXPANDED EDUCATION PROGRAMME

WAYS OF SEEING THE CITY
BY KAUSIK MUKHOPADHYAY

MUMBAI | 24 – 29 SEPTEMBER 2018

At the Sir J.J. School of Art, Mumbai
Other participating colleges: SNDT Women’s University, Pune; Department of Fine Arts, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Aurangabad; Bharti Vidyapeeth College of Fine Arts, Pune and Government College of Art and Design, Nagpur

Ways of Seeing the City emerged from an intersectional zone of art and architecture. The entire workshop was structured with this approach of developing new ways of seeing the city and building a ‘kinetic sculpture’ in response to this study. The educators introduced the students to different ways of map-making to visualise the ongoing process of a place and capture its livelihood through the works of designers, artists, and architects. The students formed into groups and each group decided to work on one of these nine locations for their projects: Bhuleshwar, Banganga, Chowpatty Beach, BBD Chawls, Crawford Market, Mangaldas Market, Dalal Street, Bhochidaka, and CSMT Station.

The initial task for the groups was to visit these localities and document the place as photographs, videos, drawings etc., which they presented next day. The next step for the groups was to culminate their findings from the places and come up with ideas to build a ‘kinetic sculpture’. The educators introduced the term ‘kinetic sculpture’ by presenting artworks especially through the works of Alexander Calder, Jean Tinguely, Theo Jansen, amongst others. In a short span of few days, the teams managed to build works inspired from the specific locality they visited. On the final day these works were exhibited for a mixed group of artists, art historians, curators, educators, among other students..

The workshop ‘Ways of Seeing the City’ was developed by educators Kausik Mukhopadhyay and Sonal Sundararajan. Kausik and Sonal come from the architecture background and are also fellow educators at Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture and Environment Studies, Mumbai. Kausik is also renowned in the art world for his kinetic sculptures which are part of his longtime art practice.