Important issues about the changing face of Bengaluru and the rapid nature of its growth and development, as the city is currently in the midst of a massive demographic transformation, were recently brought to light at a public event in National Institute of Advanced Studies, at the Indian Institute of Science Campus.
Titled ‘Whose City? Public Space, Protest, Art’; artistes, filmmakers and creative practitioners came together and discussed the process in which the city has been bulldozed over time, to make way for a ‘shining, global city’, at the expanse of various communities and their livelihoods.
The event had three presentations which looked at how the city has been reconstituted, refashioned and reimagined over time, the massive shifts in infrastructure and the changing pattern of urbanisation.
Smriti Srinivas, a professor from University of California, Davis and the chairperson of the event, started by saying, “Major shifts in the city have taken place after the Cantonment came up. New suburbs, townships and layouts have influenced our perception of the urban. The major changes in the city — the building of the metro and concept of ring roads have changed the pattern of urbanisation. The transformation of the city’s landscape has affected communities, the very lifeline of Bengaluru.”
Filmmakers Gautam Sonti and Usha Rao showed clips from their documentary, ‘Our Metropolis’. It is a film that goes back to 2008, when the metro first emerged from the rubble in M G Road boulevard. The clips were packed with important metaphors and documented the transition from 2008 to 2013, when the city witnessed the erasure of familiar landmarks, re-making of neighbourhoods and make-over of streets to make way for a modern city. Gagan, who was present at the event, explained that the film questioned the notion of development as the city was broken down and built over to execute a major plan and this plan did not even take into account the lives of communities that were displaced.
Angarika Guha and Prashant Parvatneni from ‘Maraa – A Media and Arts Collective’ took the audience through the side-walks of Shivajinagar. The walk elaborated memories and experiences of street vendors. Prashant says, “There are a lot of heritage and nature walks that happen in the city. We wanted to subvert the idea and tell people smaller stories and lesser-known histories of street vendors who are right now being evicted in Shivajinagar. They are considered a nuisance and this is the biggest form of gentrification that is taking place in society.” Their second presentation included the exhibition that was held at Cubbon Park, where ‘missing people’ and ‘forbidden figures/activities’ were depicted in the form of scarecrows. “This project is a ‘Maraa’ initiative and scarecrows were installed across the park. The missing figures are ice cream sellers, ballon sellers and other such vendors who are now being asked to leave as there is a plan to regularise shops and business in Cubbon Park.”
The event concluded with Shivani Sheshadri and Siddhanth Shetty from the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology presenting their project ‘Art In Transit’, where art is brought to the public realm. Students brought alive the lifestyle of the community at Peenya through installations, murals and art work at the metro and turned the face of it from being just another transit point. Peenya, being the industrial heart of Bengaluru and exploding to larger residential complexes provided high points of drama for students to engage in a dialogue between art and the city. The presentation included how experience, memory and fantasy, which is always in a state of transition, invent the city.
The event opened up more questions than leaving people with answers about the city, which is the fulcrum of one’s existence and vice versa.