Art in
Transit
Deepti Ramakrishnan PDP 401
table of contents 01-proposal 02-inspiration 03-research 04-process 05-prototype
01
proposal
Proposal The Peenya metro station is considered an alien structure in its environment. Upon research done in the area around the metro station, mainly the village that is found nearby, i learned that the metro station is frowned upon by most who live there. According to the people who inhabit that village, Peenya metro station and the higway are the main reasons for the divide that has been caused in the community. Many houses were demolished to make way for the construction of the structure which most of them dont use. They prefer using the bus system as they are not educated about the metro and are therefore afraid to use it. During one of my many visits to this small community that remained, i met a man who had lived in Peenya since before the construction of the metro and the highway, when peenya used to be filled with Ragi fields and their village was much larger. He spoke about what Peenya was and compared it to what it had become. This conversation stuck with me and resonated within me very deeply. Having been inspired so much by that story, I chose to create a mural in the staircase of the metro station. Through the mural i wanted to portray the difference of Peenya from what it used to be to what it is presently. The themes that i wanted to bring out was family and community. That bond that has been broken by the construction of the highway and the metro station. AIM: To bring out the meaning of family and community using the conersations and research that had been done i have had in the village community that is located near the metro station. PROCESS: Site visits, Research done on the community that lives there, Taking pictures to understand the visual language, taking notes of the conversations that took place to form the story and collecting mud samples. MEDIUM: Mural, across the underneath of the staircase between the groundfloor and the first floor.
02
inspiration
inspiration Inspiration for this project stemmed from various sources of different artists working on various community based projects. One of the main sources of inspiration was by a Japanese artist named Yusuke Asai, who went to The Niranjana school in Bihar and painted the walls using paint, leaves, dust and 7 different kinds of local mud. The artwork features tribal and organic patterns inspired by local art and culture.The Artist wished to bring the isolated members of the community closer through his art. The artists' other goal was to bring art into the lives of the schoolchildren, who are isolated from cultural centers like New Delhi. Asai the different materials like mud etc. to produce his wall paintings as a way to appreciate the earth and land that local farmers' depend upon for their livelihoods. After exhibiting the mud paintings, Asai worked with the children to wipe away his work, returning the material to the soil and teaching the students the meaning of life as a cycle. This project fueled my idea for my mural. I initially wanted to do the entire mural using mud paints the only difference being they would be permanant mud paints rather than temporary. I wanted to use mud to depict the roots of peenya, using what is natural to the area to make a piece that symbolises the beauty of the community there.
03 research
Research Visual Language: To understand the elements and colors that i wanted to use in the mural, I needed a better undertstanding of the community that lived in Peenya. I observed the space and clicked pictures to create a moodboard for my mural.
Story. I created a story using the conversation I had with a man in Peenya. His conversation was what spurred a whole range of ideas as to what i wanted to use as content for the mural. The story is as follows: When I went to Peenya, we met a man who has been in Peenya since before the highway and metro stations came up. We began conversing with him about what Peenya used to be like. He described how Peenya was before the industries came about, before the highway. Peenya was once a land filled with greenery. Tall trees dotted the landscape with children jumping from one tree to the next, an excited hum of people talking and laughing, large expanses lush ragi fields were what sustained the village and their families. The sense of community was so strong; they considered themselves one big family. It all started from 1972- 1977 when the ISRO project came about and that’s what sparked the change in Peenya. While this was starting, the community in Peenya had a meeting with their Panchayat and discussed how this situation would mean that they would have to sell their land and they had no other options. They then decided that they would ask for jobs in exchange for their land being taken away to form this industry. As time went by they were starting to realize that their plan was not working out leading many people to leave Peenya which had been their home for generations and relocate elsewhere to neighboring villages. Gradually their land started to decrease, as it was being sold for Rs.3000 per hectare and what was once a land filled with greenery and families was now starting to turn into a fast paced industrial area. Without their land and no jobs being offered by the industries, the community became smaller and smaller until there was just a handful left in Peenya, all crowded into tightly spaced houses in one small part of what was once a large thriving community. They had no value for time anymore. Just when they thought that it could not get any worse, the highway comes up, creating a litera l divide between the community causing over 500 houses to be demolished in order for it to get constructed. This made their community grow even smaller and more scared and vulnerable. With the population of this small community growing, whatever little amounts of land they had less also had to be divided among families, until that too slowly wiped out. Just when I thought about how horrible they must feel and how much more he was going to vent out about his land and his community, I looked up to see a smile on his face and was surprised. He went on to talk about the beauty of Peenya. How even after all that has happened, whoever is left still have that everlasting bond of a family. They do not segregate or discriminate. He ended the conversation by saying something so powerful. "If tonight I don't have any food to sustain myself, my neighbors will share theirs with me, even if they don't have enough for themselves, no questions asked. So as long as this bond survives, so will we."
04 process
Morning:
As people get off at the Peenya metro station to go to work, they stop fora bite to eat on the way, hence the big crowd of people.
Afternoon:
The fewest amount of people gather around the vendors during this time.
Evening:
The most number of people gather around this time and the vendors make the most money during this time. They get a bite to eat before getting home.
Mapping Peenya:
One of the exercises that we had to do in class was to go to Peenya and map anything that you wouldnt find on Google maps. I decided to map the people who visit the food vendors along the road next to the metro station.
05
prototype
Swatches These swatches were created to give insight into how the mural would look. As shown in these pictures, most of the mural was to be done in earthy colors and only parts of it would be pictured like reality. I played around with the style of dots that was used to create this effect
In the image above, the dust which is shown through dots will enlarge to form circles, within which you can see hoe Peenya looked in reality, i used the colors that i had observed while exploring Peenya and taking pictures
In the image on the left and above,i used the dust to depict which parts of my mural are from the older Peenya and which are from the newer more industrialised version of Peenya. Hence when the dots flow over any part of the old Peenya, they turn lighter and when they go over a more industrialised Peenya, they go darker. This symbolises the way the Peenya community are so different culturally and visually and the meaning of that.
Visualisation
Personal note: On a personal note, i would like to say. All in all, i was so overwhelmed in this project. It was both a good feeling and a bad one. As this was the first time that i was dealing with a project on such a large scale, i often found myself intimidated by the sheer magnitude of this project which then led to me feeling stuck with my work. I couldnt seem to bring my theme across. It had to be understood by large masses of people as this was a public art project, one which i had never taken on before and i stumbled alot through the whole process and at many a time i felt lost. Even though i felt that way, this project also made me gain alot of confidence with my work and with myself. I finally got over the fear of putting myself out there. I am glad i got through every hardship i faced, because it made me come out stronger. To that i am forever grateful. Thank you.