Project Details

Location: Mauritius and Mumbai

Project year: 2018

Team: Collaboration with Varun Jain for photography

In 2018 I undertook a unique experiment to represent the image of a city through the use of my artworks.

“A city has three key elements: Natural Landscape, Built Landscape and People. The interaction between these three, at varying scales, creates the identity, memory and experience of the city. This understanding, developed by my formal training as an architect, influences my artistic expression. I have keen interest in visual representation of the ‘character’ of built environments and the delicate relationship they hold with natural environments and people. To really do justice to this ideology which influences my artworks, I decided to capture a few of them against the dynamic backgrounds of a city.” The first was more simplistic attempt shot on Poste de Flacq beach in Mauritius on the occasion of Earth Day in 2018.

This experiment gave rise to a more formal and well planned exercise to capture artworks against the dynamic backgrounds of Mumbai. I also saw this as an opportunity to pay homage to the wonderful city that I had called ‘home’ for 5 years; through the depiction of its architecture, its geographic features, its people and their busy lives.

Sunset overlooking Bandra Worli Sea link from Dadar beach, Mumbai.

The chaotic yet organized nature of the city of Mumbai.

The 130 year old Bombay Municipal Corporation building standing witness to the busy life of its residents at 11pm on a weekday

Flying away from the chaos at Powai Lake Mumbai.

The ‘Mumbaikars’, children from Dharavi

The highlight of this experimental project turned out to be people’s reaction to it. These children from Dharavi showed a lot of excitement on seeing the particular artwork. Their instant reaction was an attempt at finding resemblance of the faces to people they knew from their lives. Although intended as a static representation of elements of the city, the project turned out to be more than just a collaboration between an artist and a photographer.