Grids in Garden - Documentation by Gauri Nagpal

Grids in a Garden Gauri Nagpal

Final Thesis Project 2018

GAURI NAGPAL Final Thesis Project 2018 (Undergraduate Professional Programme) Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology Bangalore - 560064 Karnataka

THESIS PROJECT 2018 GRIDS IN A GARDEN A Multimedia Installation STUDENT:

GAURI NAGPAL

PROJECT:

Grids in a Garden

SPONSOR:

Self initiated

PROGRAM:

Undergraduate Professional Programme

AWARD:

Information Arts and Information Design Practice

GUIDES:

Abhishek Hazra

Copyrights 2017-2018 Student Document Publication (for private circulation only) All Rights Reserved Final Thesis Project (Undergraduate Professional Programme) Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology Bangalore - 560064 Karnataka No part of this document will be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronically or mechanically, including photocopying, scanning, photography and video recording without written permission from the publishers namely Gauri Nagpal and Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore. Written, edited and designed by Gauri Nagpal Printed at Srishti, Bangalore

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND PLAGIARISM STATEMENT I, Gauri Nagpal, hereby declare that the content of this student documentation and final design/artwork submission is my own original work and has not been plagiarised in full or part from previously published/designed/manufactured material or does not even contain substantial propositions of content which have been accepted for an award of any other degree or diploma of any other educational institution, except where due acknowledgement is made in this thesis project. I also declare that the intellectual content of this Thesis Project is my own original work, except to the extent that assistance from others in the projectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s design and conception or in style and presentation is acknowledged and that this thesis project (or part of it) will not be submitted as assessed work in any other academic course.

COPYRIGHT STATEMENT I, Gauri Nagpal, hereby grant Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology the right to archive and to make available my Thesis Project in whole or in part in the instituteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s databank and website, and for non-commercial use in all forms of media, now and hereafter known, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act.

Name: Signature: Date:

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Now I have welcomed one great experiment in India, which you know very well, Chandigarh. Many people argue about it, some like it, some dislike it. It is totally immaterial, whether you like it or not; it is the biggest job of its kind in India. That is why I welcome it. It is the biggest because it hits you on the head, because it makes you think.â&#x20AC;? - Jawaharlal Nehru, 1959

Brief Grids in a Garden leads an inquiry into the different forms of erasure directed by the plan of Chandigarh that I have come to understand as a resident. An attempt is made to register the encounters with some of these phenomena, perpetually hidden in plain sight as intersections between legality and illegality, the meaning of violations and the conflict between heritage preservation and need based reform are confronted through a field based research process.

Process Understanding Social Critique Gulliverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Travels The Privilege of Ignorance

Contextualising Chandigarh Primary Research Photography and Sound

Challenges Representation Contemplating Form

Display

Understanding Social Critique Gulliverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Travels The Privilege of Ignorance

An understanding of the meaning of social critique was arrived at through reading of Gulliverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Travels by Johnathan Swift. Swift narrates the story of sailor Lemuel Gulliver, an avid sailor, as he sets out to travel the seas. Due to various mishaps such as shipwrecks and pirate inavasions he is led to obscure islands each with a particular characteristic that he uses to critique the 18th century political milieu in England. Some of the larger thematcis that were culled from the text are as follows:

- Egocentricity - Authoritarianism -

Power, Corruption, Ethics and Morality

A Quest for Liberty

In all three travels, Gulliver encounters societies that have highly developed political systems. Upon his arrival on all three islands, he is summoned by the kingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s court that is the highest authority on each island respectively.

Each empire has three independent classes with their own set of interests:

The king contends for absolute dominion.

The nobility/aristocracy contends for power in the kingdom.

The people contend for their freedom and liberty.

The flying island of Laputa highlights the inevitability and necessity of political compromise in an authoritarian system. The king has the power to abolish any estate that chooses to rebel but cannot exercise the same, as it would possibly lead to the compromise of the floating islandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s aviation and elevation. Hence, there is a limit on the exercise of power.

Absolute rebellion can never be exercised (the damage would be to oneself) Absolute power can never be exercised (the damage would be to the instrument of power)

Thus, political compromise and negotiation becomes necessary to establish a state of equilibrium of conflicting interests among the state and the people.

Are moral values eternal and universal truths? Does morality exist independent of human social construct? What is proper behaviour? Do moral assessments involve emotion and not reason?

Is there an ideal, natural state of liberty?

Is the absence of a concept of freedom liberating?

At a talk about creating a new category for Dalit Art, Dr. Deeptha Achar mentioned how imperative it is for the artist to be mindful of her own position while making work about different classes and castes. In a particular example, she mentioned how illustarted children’s books often meant for Dalit children represent highly normative narratives and stylistics choices. If such work is ever to be meanigful to those it is intended for, it must focus on facets of non-normative childhoods most children in our country encounter. The term ‘normative childhood’ stood out for me and led me to question how various questions of caste and class differences have been completely erased from my lived experience by virtue of my own privilege. Ths led to a deeper enquiry into my own childhood, the various experiences that have been removed from my life and under what contexts am I now exploring the same?

What is a normative childhood?

Is normalcy an account of unawareness and the degree to which questions of caste and class do not affect an individualâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lived experiences?

Contextualising Chandigarh Primary Research Photography and Sound

The Edict of Chandigarh â&#x20AC;&#x153;No Personal Statue Be Erected The age of personal statues is gone. No personal statues shall be erected in the city or parks of Chandigarh. The city is planned to breathe the new sublimated spirit of art. Commemoration of persons shall be confined to suitably placed bronze plaques.â&#x20AC;?

CHANDIGARH, A LIVED EXPERIENCE

As I started questioning the origin of erasure, I reflected on the city I grew up in and how it is reserved for a very specific class of people. Dictated by Nehru’s hope for a post-independent modern utopia, Le Corbusier’s dream of the ‘machine city’ is realized in Chandigarh. The city itself is an archetype of erasure and irony wherein the representation of the ideal man, the model basis of the city becomes a dehumanizing agent for its residents. Devoid of any identity apart from what is lent by its master planner, the form of the grid becomes impenetrable, wherein the spaces are reduced to numbers and the people to their relationship to the ownership of land. The main feature of the city is its master plan, created over 60 years ago by French architect Le Corbusier. Today, the city takes pride in its modern plan and its uniformity to such an extent that no new alterations to the same are permissible. Chandigarh takes the form of a grid made up of 56 (current) sectors each a smaller city in itself, with its own markets, government schools, parks and residential zones all within the area of 1 square kilometer. The houses are numbered and the building laws state that none can be built higher than three stories, relegating the residents to build multiple levels of basements in order to accommodate for the lack flexibility in the plan. The hyper-organization of the city is an outcome of the concrete rules that determine how residents can occupy and access spaces. From the dimensions of windows and doors in a house to the dimensions of storefront hoardings in commercial areas, every inch is predetermined. The Estate Office and the Housing Board are bodies that keep a record of every new brick laid in the city and monitor constructions periodically, checking for any violations. As the master plan is the only identity of the city now devoid of any indigenous culture, preservation of the same has become of the utmost importance. The stubborn architecture puts the city in an in between zone, the capital of two states grappling with its indispensable plan while dealing with constant expansion. Twenty lakh residents now populate the city initially built for a mere 5 lakh. In light of all these problems, how strictly heritage is preserved while blatantly ignoring need-based reform in order to sustain the projected image of the ‘City Beautiful’ is perplexing. Chandigarh urges one to question the consequences of building a city based on foreign ideals instead of suiting one’s indigenous context.

PRIMARY RESERACH

This time I went back to the city not as a resident but as someone that wanted to study its master plan. I engaged in conversations with:

•

Officials at the Urban Planning Department of the Estate Office

•

Chief architect of the Chandigarh Housing Board

•

Dean of the College of Architecture

•

The curator of Corbusier Museum

•

30+ vendors in and around the city

•

Residents of Lal Dora villages

SPACE AND THE CITY

The cognizance of having been living under the Corbusian rock only struck me now with a change of the optic. It seemed as though the city had withheld information, folded neatly in certain pockets, hidden in plain sight. The urban condition this gives rise to is that of invisibilities reinforcing class-based segregations in a city. The Lal Dora villages, areas that were reserved for livestock in the early 1900s, exempted from municipality rules and regulations are today treated as sectoral colonies. These spaces in conjunction with peripheral colonies, temporary residences of the labor force of the city and the exploitation of street vendors are all occurrences unfamiliar to most residents, creating a gap between different groups that reside in the same space. The city attracts migrants from villages in Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh promising quality education and healthcare. However, the high life that Chandigarh proposes is reserved for only a specific class of people, separated from all by the impenetrable grid.

Who is the city built for and who builds the city? How do we make our cities more inclusive? How do we re-evaluate the very meaning of modernity and utopia? How do we build cities to suit our contexts instead of basing them on western

OBSERVATIONS AND INFERENCES

The recurring theme that seems to retain the disjunct between the projected and the real image of Chandigarh is that of violations. Violations imposed on spaces in the city like the Lal Dora villages, Housing Boards violations and those on the migrants such as vendors and the other labour force of the city control the visibility of the heritage and its modern plan over that of the unorganised spaces.

VISIBLE

INVISIBLE

ANALYSING VIOLATIONS IN CHANDIGARH

Decreased footfall in the commercial sector

LEGALISATION OF THE VENDOR, GOOD OR BAD? Due to a decreased footfall in the commercial sector, the Corporation decided to authorise the street vendors in order to attract more people. The criteria for the selection of the license is unclear to the vendors as there is no official proof of their vending histories. A tax of Rs. 2000 per month has been levied for obtaining the license which a lot of the vendor have yet not received despite of paying the fee. With an increase in the overall number of vendors in one area, there is now a significant decrease in the income of the vendors who have been occupying these spaces for years.

MUNICIPAL CORPORATION

ENFORCEMENT OF LAW

The vendors that cannot afford the license fee are harassed by both the Corporation and the Police.

HOUSING BOARD

GOVERNMENT

BUILDING LEGISLATION

ESTATE OFFICE

POLICE Absence of hawkers in this area. Cheap retail spaces are unofficially built by the vendors who choose to trade in the Lal-â&#x20AC;&#x2039;Dora villages.

â&#x20AC;&#x2039;AUTHORISED YET UNORGANISED SPACES Housing laws are not enforced in Lal-Dora villages by the Municipal Corporation due a latent unofficial agreement between the corporation and these village spaces. Over the years, these villages have morphed into both residential and commercial spaces for the labour force of the city. Because of the freedom of building, hawkers are absent in these areas as cheap retail spaces are unofficially built by the vendors who choose to trade in the Lal-Dora villages.

The periphery of a lives

Housing la enforced villages by t Corpo

LACK OF STRUCTURAL SUPPORT

The Municipal Corporation has not been able to provide official vending structures.

Vendors often have to bribe the police in order to save their produce from being ceased. This is because even among the now licensed vendors, no built, structurally specific sites have been declared as official vending areas. The police exploit this due to which the street vendors have to always be on the run.

PAST HERITAGE VS. PRESENT NEED In both cases, the building legislations are made to preserve the aesthetic of the city and hence add a label of heritage to these spaces. The laws are often very strict and do not align with the present day need of the citizens.

Annual Violation Fee becomes a source of regular income for the Housing Board and the Estate Office.

In order to attract more people to the city, for a brief period in the early 80s, both commercial

RESIDENTIAL HOUSING LAWS

buildings and residential houses

COMMERCIAL BUILDING LAWS

were converted to free-hold with the payment of a nominal amount.

Retail outlets affordable only by the upper middle class. RETAILER

SECTORAL

CITIZEN

RESIDENTIAL

NON - SECTORAL (LAL DORA)

village, reserved for stock

COMMERCIAL

VENDOR

The vendor as a nuisance to the retailer. Covers the limited display areas of a retail store.

VENDOR AS AN UNRECOGNISED CITIZEN In the National Policy for the Urban Street Vendor, the hawker/squatter is never recognised as a population group and is removed from the title of 'citizen'. The policy states that the schemes for the vendor need not be populist but rather consistent with the citizens who have fundamental rights to spaces provided by the State.

The 'othering' of the land-less vendor popoulation.

NOW

HEN

aws are not in Lal-Dora the Municipal oration.

LEASE - HOLD (PAYS RENT)

FREE - HOLD

LEASE - HOLD (PAYS RENT)

FREE - HOLD

The residential space for income housing, affordable by the labour force. Shared spaces, unorganised, unplanned housing and a few retail spaces.

Authorised but unorganised settlements.

A large number of the urban vendor population is migrants from Uttar Pradesh. To resolve the Punjab-Haryana population density dispute in the early years of the city's formation, about 1000 faxes were sent to Uttar Pradesh and Bihar on a single day, inviting working families to moves to Chandigarh when it was declared that low budget housing will be available in Lal Dora villages.

The vendor is typically a migrant from other northern states who has moved to the city for better quality of life.

Commercial Stakeholder + Law Enforcement Body Residential Stakeholder + Building Legislation

Explanation of Stakeholders

Connections among Stakeholders

Intra-Body Connections

Controversy

Challenges

Representation Contemplating Form

HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO?

As I reflected on the nature of the images I took on the field, I realised how they resembled the aesthetic of the widely reproduced ‘poor man’s image’. I thus decided to refrain from using the same. This decision was made in order to mute the harshness of photographic image that often highlights the distance between the position of the photographer and that of her subject often sensationalising and romanticising class and caste differences. Some larger questions about responsibility and the politics of representation then came up:

Is the all pervasive ‘need to act’ gaze that reduces people to subjects and thinking that one has the ability to fight other people’s battles for them an insight into one’s own latent sense of superiority over people? Is authority, intentional or unintentional, that puts the researcher or artist in the position of the observer a fundamental flaw with the process of attempting to understand and rightfully represent the ‘subject’? How must one treat the stories and struggles of a community or a people with the knowledge that the resulting work or research may not cause immediate reform or awareness? How does one look at these narratives not simply as data or information? Is it possible to remove one’s own lived experiences that lead to certain aspirations and ambitions and not impose them on people that lead different lives by virtue of caste, class, income backgrounds etc.?

FORMAL DECISIONS

The final form of the installation attempts to explore the tension between the process of research and the final outcome of an artistic practice. The manner in which research material can be used to translate the process of acquiring information into suitable visual and auditory media are explored. Questions of how data and information are defined are raised through understanding the gaps between documented records and oral testimonies.

Sound is used as opposed to image so as to mute the harshness of the photographic image that often highlights the distance between the position of the photographer and that of her subject. A record of the oral testimonies is compiled to give a sense of the invisibility that is foregrounded via dialogue with vendors in and around the city.

Large-scale maps of the city are drawn in the sequence through which the city has revealed itself to me over the years. The surface of the canvas is flipped and concrete is used as paint to highlight the modernist aesthetic of the city. The surface itself attempts to highlight the discordance that I have felt from the city.

4ft x 4ft Cement, Chalk, Canvas

4.5ft x 4ft Cement, Chalk, Canvas

4ft x 4ft Cement, Chalk, Canvas

A folder containing all the legal documents of possession, construction and notices of building violations of the house I currently reside in is compiled as an archival object annotated with testimonies of my family.

THE MOVING IMAGE PIECE: Understanding Aspiration through Popular Culture

Finally, a moving image piece narrates the story of the city using footage from the inauguration of the city to the footage of colonies and villages within the city today as the soundtrack of Shree 420 aids its telling. The film was chosen because of its relevance to the time during which thw city was constructed and the urban versus rural debate was explored in cinema. The story revolves around a migrant from a village moving to a city like Bombay having to live on a footpath, hoping for a brighter future only coming to the realisation that the way to success is through corruption and abuse of power. The popular Bollywood song that is often frowned upon in an artistic context due to aesthetic differences represents the collective aspiration and admiration for heroic and relatable fictional figures across the masses. Although I initially refrained from using a symbol as powerful as the protagonist in Shree 420, I retained the same so as to foreground the romance that is imbedded in such figures that the masses enjoy and aspire to be.

REFLECTIVE STATEMENT

My largest takeaway from this project has been an extended understanding of my own position as a practioner with respect to the subject of my work. My interest in the process of research and field based engagement was highly explored through this project. The tension between the research and the final work, how differently both are understood, the difference in viewrship and how separate they often tend to be are challenges I faced and attempted to resolve. Critical formal decisions that support my argument were thoroughly explored by reducing research not just to data but creating relevant visual and auditory material. Larger questions of my own position, privilege, erasure, agency and responsibiliy are questions I may not have been able to resolve in the amount of time I have spent on this project but the awareness of the politics behind each is something I have come to understand much better through the process of rediscovering my own city. I hope to find a space in between academia and artistic practice where I am allowed to think and reinvent forms that challenge expected outcomes from either discipline. I hope to dissolve the differences between the data and the artwork by reimagining the purpose of both.