On the road to transformation

Bengaluru has witnessed the arrival of some talented people as a part of Goethe-Institut/Max Muller Bhavan’s ‘BangaloResidency’ programme this year. They’ve travelled with the purpose of showing how the City can benefit from their ideas. One such resident is Jérôme Chazeix, a visual artist and performer from Berlin, who has come here to design and implement a new multi-layered performance called ‘Bangalore Master Plan’.

During his time here, he worked with Jaaga and celebrated its ‘Under the Flyover’ project, which took place in the City recently. With the parade and multi-layered performance of ‘We Make The City’ — a participatory project celebrating the metropolis — the citizens of the City, from Richmond Road to Shantinagar, witnessed his vision for Bengaluru. Jérôme asks, “Flyovers represent the future and Bengaluru has no dearth of these. But what happens under the flyover? Is the future of the City reflected here too?” Despite heavy rains on the day of the performance, he took up this artistic challenge and walked with 35 other performers who wore and carried architectural sculptures, photo collages, totems and poetic flags under the Richmond Town and Double Road Flyovers. Jérôme’s works are mostly contemporary combined with different media and their cross-references. With the interplay and fusion of sculptures, videos, music and costumes, his works end in a complex scenario.

At the parade and performance, he wanted to celebrate the big city, which is an
amalgamation of different cultures.

He says, “Everything around the City is so exciting that I wanted to piece together all of the elements. The flyovers are also part of the City, which can be used to show the culture of the place. With the performance, we wanted to show the inhabitants that this is possible as well.”

It definitely got the attention of the passers-by; some even stopped their vehicles to watch the entire show. Pramod, one of the onlookers, says, “I didn’t expect to see something like this at that time of the day, especially with the rain. At first, I thought it was a protest, but after talking to one of them, I realised that they are just bringing forth an objective for the citizens to use the space under the flyover. I am surprised how no one else thought of this before!”