Press Release:National Gallery of Modern Art - Mumbai (NGMA) presents SOAK - Mumbai in an EstuaryArt before Science: a new visualization of Mumbai's terrainAuthored, Designed and drawn by: Anuradha Mathur / Dilip da Cunha Contact: Prof. Rajeev Lochan, Director NGMA - 09868129712 Kavita Khanna, Director SOAK - 9892300004 Anuradha Mathur / Dilip da Cunha - 09980008574 Mumbai, 23rd June 2009: The National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) presents, 'SOAK: Mumbai in an Estuary' which will then travel to NGMA Bangalore and Delhi. The book, 'SOAK: Mumbai in an Estuary' authored by Anuradha Mathur and Dilip da Cunha will also be released with the opening of the exhibition in Mumbai. The exhibition was opened by the Honorable Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Mr. Ashok Chavan in the presence of Secretary, Minsitry of Culture, Govt of India, Mr. Jawhar Sircar and Guest of Honour, Mr. Adi Godrej. 'SOAK: Mumbai in an Estuary' is a multimedia installation in response to the flood of 2005. It is a new visualization of Mumbai's terrain, presenting Mumbai in an estuary, a fluid threshold between land and sea. It encourages design interventions that holds monsoon waters rather than channel them out to sea; that work with the gradient of an estuary; that accommodate uncertainty through resilience, not overcome it with prediction. It moves Mumbai out of the imaging of flood and the widely accepted trajectory of war with the sea and monsoon that this imaging perpetuates. "My involvement with SOAK since its conception has been driven by my intense and passionate concern for the future of our children and our cities," reveals Kavita Khanna, Director of SOAK. "The exhibition with the support of the National Gallery of Modern Art and the leadership and vision of its Director, Prof. Rajeev Lochan, without whom it would not have happened, breaks new ground by using the language of design and creative expression to highlight important contemporary concerns. Conceived as a multimedia installation, SOAK seeks to create public awareness and dialogue to impact decisions on the ground through a process that accommodates the complex realities of urban habitats in the face of climate change." The exhibition includes approximately 70 historical maps and illustrations, and 90 photographic works and drawings by Anuradha Mathur and Dilip da Cunha, and an installation titled 'Collective Memory'. There are twelve proposals for the Mithi terrain included in the exhibition that address the design for a resilient landscape. According to Rajeev Lochan, Director, NMGA 'SOAK - Mumbai in an Estuary', "extends the language of design, planning and architecture in a conceptual, visual and graphic manner, treating the Mithi, a river of Mumbai, as a metaphor with a sense of totality. It addresses intangible pertinent questions relevant to society, geographical issues, and anthropological concerns of our time." "The exhibition is unique in that for the first time, with the support of the National Gallery of Modern Art, it will be bringing awareness of contemporary concerns of cities, using design to create a public dialogue. It is intended that SOAK will foster public awareness and involvement, with the aim of impacting decisions on the ground and in policy through a process that is not confrontational but accommodating of the complex realities of Mumbai," according to Kavita Khanna, Director of SOAK. "Anuradha and Dilip bring pioneering and cutting edge thought to this issue. SOAK is about making peace with the sea; about designing with the monsoon in an estuary. This is a major initiative with global relevance in the context of sea level rise and climate change. The exhibition suggests a cutting edge approach and the necessity of re-imagining the language of the coast and coastal settlements. "We have made the monsoon an enemy or at the very least an unwanted guest in Mumbai when it is our inheritance, indeed our life," reveals Anuradha. According to Dilip, "SOAK is an alternative to flood. Flood cultivates a problem-solving attitude and a desire to control the divide between land and water. SOAK, on the other hand, does not assume a divide. It works with a gradient of wetness, taking water (monsoon and sea) as intrinsic to the landscape of Mumbai, rather than an outsider." States Kavita Khanna, Director of SOAK, "I have been involved with SOAK since it's inception. The Mumbai floods of 2005 triggered this work and I believe it is extremely important for our city. Governmental measures to prevent a repeat of the 2005 floods have largely centered on making the Mithi a more efficient storm water drain. While this is necessary, we have repeatedly seen that widening and deepening river channels and raising embankments are inadequate responses that carry high risks, as was seen in New Orleans after Katrina. New Orleans flooded because the levee system catastrophically failed after the storm had moved inland. "In our own city we grapple with the issue of what to do when heavy or even moderate rain coincides with high tide..." There are 3 sections to SOAK in the exhibition: Coastline The first section of SOAK looks at the build up to war against the monsoon as rooted in a belief that land can be separated from the sea. It traces the drawing of the coast line; its tentative if artful beginnings in early European maps and its pursuit in the "fair weather season" by English marine and land surveyors in the 18th and 19th centuries. Estuary The second section of SOAK draws out landscapes that survive beyond the delineating eye of the surveyor and pervasive colonial descriptions, both appreciative and critical, that begin by seeing Mumbai's terrain divided into objects in geographic space. These landscapes, which include swamps, oarts, talaos, and bazaars, occupy the fluid and open gradient of an estuary, a terrain that operates more as a filter between land and sea than a line between them. They demand a different way of seeing and a different mode of representation through section, horizon and time. Projects The third section of SOAK proposes 12 initiations in a terrain that reaches from the hills of Salsette in the north, with their commanding access to the sea all around, to the five historic forts of Worli, Mahim, Rewa, Sion and Sewri that were once waterfront sentinels of Mumbai's estuary. Each initiation works to resolve the problem of flood not by enforcing lines but by transforming Mumbai into a place that absorbs the monsoon and sea, a place that accommodates soak. About the authors, designers and artists: Anuradha Mathur and Dilip da Cunha are faculty at the School of Design, University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. They have focused their artistic and design expertise on cultural and ecological issues of contentious landscapes. They have studied diverse terrains including the Lower Mississippi, New York, Sunderbans, Rio Grande and Bangalore. Their drawings and projects have been part of a number of exhibitions in the US and India, and they have authored and curated two major traveling exhibitions and books - Mississippi Floods: Designing a Shifting Landscape (Yale University Press, 2001) and Deccan Traverses: the Making of Bangalore's Terrain (Rupa & Co., 2006). |
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