Climbing back on track

What is the dialogue about?

Some free writing in order to clear out the clutter.

-The disconnect between the people and the spaces/ places they inhabit, use, explore, see every day.
-Is it a question of expression of identity, governance, control, ownership or simple a visual anarchism/ tyranny that has taken place. if it only a reflection of what we are today then why do we feel the disconnect? The disconnect is because that is our condition right now. the disconnect is the nature of the spectacle. and yet when we look at a place/space identity in our lives , when we look at memory, association, mythologies and stories, a visual- spatial connect is apparent. some visuals styles/ arrangements even evoke certain feelings and memories of time, place etc.
-I don't want to go into the politics of government policies or freedom of expression or racial/ caste/ gender politics, although they are all real elements in the construction of this space. what i want to look at is purely the visual. And to create a dialogue, not About this phenomenon but a dialogue that will in effect question this phenomenon in its very form and structure, by intervening almost physically and mentally between the people and a space. The dialogue in its nature is using the form in question. it is about nothing else.
-what am trying to look for in terms of place then? im trying to look for a diverse range of people who use, inhabit, visit the place regularly and seeing how these various identities can stick with each other and relate to a place.
-Indigenous then, the notion of indigenous where does that come from and how do we express that in contrast to this non-indeginous space that i am looking at to express identity?

Identity : cultural, social, gender, sexual, race, national, local, personal, community, regional, how do i encompass it all? should i try to do this? do i need to look at one section. they all do overlap in every individual and every intersection has a varied group of individuals, how am i talking about identity?

The Idea of Identity. How our spaces and places do and don't express our identities . How we derive our sense of identity from place, And what role can / does Image play in this.

Looking at collective memories, projections and experiences of space a necessary layer of geography to consider and address the disconnection of our spaces with our lives, and looking at the clues in the visual in our spaces that tell of our current condition, including the past and the future, the politics, the social, the unspoken unexplainable phenomena that are, that make up our lives.




There is a difference between personal space being expressive of my individual personality or identity and how a public space can be expressive of a certain personality or collective consciousness. To impose a certain personality on a space is not the intent as this could only be limiting in terms freezing a space in a certain time/style/condition. The final expression is only true when organically and naturally formed. The intent is to create this idea or awareness that this Image/Visual matters and affects at a mass collective level.

The idea or content for this needs to come from a personal individual level, since subjectivity is the key. But then there needs to be a cross section or range in terms of people - stereotypes - and their subjectivities which will overlap and extend beyond each others to expose interesting mental spaces within a physical realm. These would be the grounds then for dialogue.


YOUR IDENTITY >>> The Intersection Between the Two <<< SPATIAL / PLACE IDENTITY


The Object of my Extension by Namrata Mehta, Aliya Pabani & Tejas Pande, Project Type- Intervention in public space

A piece of work that i found today, done right here at CEMA , very similar in terms of the framework, although the final output is very different.

Project Description and Location:

The Object of my Extension attempts to map the network of social exchanges that connect workers from the streets of Chandni Chowk to the Cyber Parks of the "new" Gurgaon. Customized objects are designed to collect people's reflections on how their daily spaces are tempered by individual memories and aspirations. Their trajectories and collected narratives trace routes that are not simply constrained to the available road and railways, but that overlap, recur and project over impossible distances. Just as the city itself is perpetually extending from a notional past, this project conveys the various "cities" of the people who extend themselves and travel impossible distances within it. This project would be displayed at Khoj Studios.

The Project Documentation Blog