A group exhibition draws attention to the unique history of a heritage village in South Bombay
Entitled ‘This Ground, Plus: Khotachi Wadi in Design Context’, the forthcoming exhibition at 47-A: Design Gallery highlights the history of the charming heritage precinct located in Mumbai’s Girgaum neighbourhood. Curated by the Chatterjee & Lal gallery along with André Baptista, an academic and local resident, the exhibition showcases unique design solutions that have innately been a part of the distinctive structural and cultural features of the place throughout its evolution since the 19th century.
Archival material is juxtaposed with contemporary design objects, incorporating a range of disciplines - from architecture and early street photography to product design and speculative art. The display, not coincidentally, comes at a time of increased threats to Khotachi Wadi’s storied heritage. Only a little under 30 houses survive today to recount the roots of its Portuguese-style bungalows and chawls originally settled by East Indian Christians.
The design-led exhibition premieres cross-disciplinary perspectives from artists across different generations, each uniquely preserving and divulging memories and stories of the place that brings them together. It includes a collaboration between city historian Simin Patel, also known as Miss Bombaywalla, and artist Philippe Celia. dirty spoke to the exhibiting artists to get a glimpse of what you can expect from the show which will be open for viewing from 24th July till 9th September.
I'm showing a weird short film called 'katabasis' (literally meaning a downward journey into the netherworld). The film is about a strange shaman-like creature covered in fur and branches, haunting a colonial era elevator in Girgaum. I'd made the work a while back when I was still in art school and was thinking about overlaying fictions upon Bombay by conjuring strange demons, spectres and shamans from other places and times across history and myth.
I grew up in Khotachi Wadi and the last couple of generations of my family have lived here. I take photographs to document the place as it is today. My work has been informed by my memories of growing up in a bungalow here. Outside of the present documentation we have so much depth from the past, shedding light on the culture of the space along with an imagined future of the city.
This project was something I did 15 years ago as a part of the Majlis Visual Arts Fellowship. We made a series of paintings of the inner city areas and one of them was of Khotachi Wadi, which became an entry point for this show. This is a collaborative work with two architects which is what makes it unique.
One of our reference points was the details of the living conditions that did not make it to the report prepared by the team while researching the area. The buildings are placed very close together, which comes from how they were built informally during the industrial revolution of Bombay. These buildings have small gaps between them and our paintings reference that, showing the planned local architecture of the area through those gaps.
I was struck by the pride Khotachi Wadi residents have in owning and carefully displaying collected objects in all the homes I visited. Purpose-driven, need-based objects were paired with objects of great aesthetic value, both of which had their role in these homes. My idea was to make a small cabinet of things with maybe two or three objects which could be produced in large numbers if required. My walks around in the Girgaum lead to me stumbling upon the perfect material to begin the work: the SS304 components were selected based on their longevity and how they age when used and touched.
Maybe these newer material and production methods contrast to a slowly crumbling Khotachi Wadi, but the underlying concern of the objects is to suggest that residents might look to new methodologies as they face the realities of restoration and conservation of the area. The charm of the places and the homes I was invited to swept me off my feet.
Girgaum played an intensely formative role in my life. I lived on Lamington Road from 1991-94 at the YMCA hostel. During these years I worked as a political activist and met veteran Gandhian Thakurdas Bang who was the first teacher who taught me how to spin. Then I learnt it at Mani Bhavan from an elderly Gandhian activist. The first work that is on display is a bundle of seven knots of Khadi yarn – each knot consists of 500 meters of hand spun yarn. The bundle is tied by a Kautuka – the red-yellow colored ritual protection thread.
The second work is a fragment from an 8mm home movie shot in Girgaon during or soon after the Indo-China conflict in October-November 1962. Featured in the footage are stars such as Prithviraj Kapoor, Manoj Kumar, Waheeda Rehman and others. Also, can be seen are floats by Film Writers Association and Guru Dutt Films Private Ltd. This is from a collection of a many hundred hours of home movies that I have been collecting from Chor Bazar for more than 30 years. This collection is now housed at the Yale film Archive.
At Bombaywalla Historical Works, we have been covering Girgaum in quite a bit of detail lately. For the exhibition, we are presenting a wider perspective of the neighbourhood, by documenting two establishments in the area that were intimately connected with the Indian Nationalist Movement. One is the Famous Physical Culture Home, a gymnasium which opened in 1940 and whose members served as a volunteer force. They evacuated nationalist leaders and agitators from areas of political unrest to sites of safety, before they could fall to police custody. The other establishment is Vanguard Studios, a photo studio that opened in 1927, where several Indian Nationalist leaders came to get their photographic portraits taken.
Philippe Celia’s works across art, photography and filmmaking are informed by his academic background in political science and anthropology. He is interested in the intersection between still and moving objects and engaging with objects and institutions of memory, such as family albums and museums.
Stephens is the founder of Urbs Indis, a studio that narrates lesser known civic histories of urban India. His book Bombay Imagined, is a curation of archival materials preserving Mumbai’s unbuilt past. Three speculations (contemporary artworks that lend graphic form to ideas and proposals that were never visualised) from the book are a part of the exhibition.
Entitled ‘This Ground, Plus: Khotachi Wadi in Design Context’, the forthcoming exhibition at 47-A: Design Gallery highlights the history of the charming heritage precinct located in Mumbai’s Girgaum neighbourhood. Curated by the Chatterjee & Lal gallery along with André Baptista, an academic and local resident, the exhibition showcases unique design solutions that have innately been a part of the distinctive structural and cultural features of the place throughout its evolution since the 19th century.
Archival material is juxtaposed with contemporary design objects, incorporating a range of disciplines - from architecture and early street photography to product design and speculative art. The display, not coincidentally, comes at a time of increased threats to Khotachi Wadi’s storied heritage. Only a little under 30 houses survive today to recount the roots of its Portuguese-style bungalows and chawls originally settled by East Indian Christians.
The design-led exhibition premieres cross-disciplinary perspectives from artists across different generations, each uniquely preserving and divulging memories and stories of the place that brings them together. It includes a collaboration between city historian Simin Patel, also known as Miss Bombaywalla, and artist Philippe Celia.dirty spoke to the exhibiting artists to get a glimpse of what you can expect from the show which will be open for viewing from 24th July till 9th September
I'm showing a weird short film called 'katabasis' (literally meaning a downward journey into the netherworld). The film is about a strange shaman-like creature covered in fur and branches, haunting a colonial era elevator in Girgaum. I'd made the work a while back when I was still in art school and was thinking about overlaying fictions upon bombay by conjuring strange demons, spectres and shamans from other places and times across history and myth.
I grew up in Khotachi Wadi and the last couple of generations of my family have lived here. I take photographs to document the place as it is today. My work has been informed by my memories of growing up in a bungalow here. Outside of the present documentation we have so much depth from the past, shedding light on the culture of the space along with an imagined future of the city.
This project was something I did 15 years ago as a part of the Majlis Visual Arts Fellowship. We made a series of paintings of the inner city areas and one of them was of Khotachi Wadi, which became an entry point for this show. This is a collaborative work with two architects which is what makes it unique. One of our reference points was the details of the living conditions that did not make it to the report prepared by the team while researching the area. The buildings are placed very close together, which comes from how they were built informally during the industrial revolution of Bombay. These buildings have small gaps between them and our paintings reference that, showing the planned local architecture of the area through those gaps.
I was struck by the pride Khotachi Wadi residents have in owning and carefully displaying collected objects in all the homes I visited. Purpose-driven, need-based objects were paired with objects of great aesthetic value, both of which had their role in these homes. My idea was to make a small cabinet of things with maybe two or three objects which could be produced in large numbers if required. My walks around in the Girgaum lead to me stumbling upon the perfect material to begin the work: the SS304 components were selected based on their longevity and how they age when used and touched.
Maybe these newer material and production methods contrast to a slowly crumbling Khotachi Wadi, but the underlying concern of the objects is to suggest that residents might look to new methodologies as they face the realities of restoration and conservation of the area. The charm of the places and the homes I was invited to swept me off my feet.
Girgaum played an intensely formative role in my life. I lived on Lamington Road from 1991-94 at the YMCA hostel. During these years I worked as a political activist and met veteran Gandhian Thakurdas Bang who was the first teacher who taught me how to spin. Then I learnt it at Mani Bhavan from an elderly Gandhian activist.
The first work that is on display is a bundle of seven knots of Khadi yarn – each knot consists of 500 meters of hand spun yarn. The bundle is tied by a Kautuka – the red-yellow colored ritual protection thread.
The second work is a fragment from an 8mm home movie shot in Girgaon during or soon after the Indo-China conflict in October-November 1962. Featured in the footage are stars such as Prithviraj Kapoor, Manoj Kumar, Waheeda Rehman and others. Also, can be seen are floats by Film Writers Association and Guru Dutt Films Private Ltd. This is from a collection of a many hundred hours of home movies that I have been collecting from Chor Bazar for more than 30 years. This collection is now housed at the Yale film Archive.
I run Bombaywalla Historical Works, which is an organisation that showcases Bombay’s built environment and history. We have been covering Girgaum in quite a bit of detail lately. For the exhibition, we are presenting a wider perspective of the neighbourhood, by documenting two establishments in the area that were intimately connected with the Indian Nationalist Movement. One is the Famous Physical Culture Home, a gymnasium which opened in 1940, and its members acted as a volunteer force. The other is Vanguard Studios, a photo studio that opened in 1927, where several Indian Nationalist leaders came to get their photographic portraits taken.
Philippe Celia’s works across art, photography and filmmaking are informed by his academic background in political science and anthropology. He is interested in the intersection between still and moving objects and engaging with objects and institutions of memory, such as family albums and museums.
Stephens is the founder of Urbs Indis, a studio that narrates lesser known civic histories of urban India. His book Bombay Imagined, is a curation of archival materials preserving Mumbai’s unbuilt past. Three speculations (contemporary artworks that lend graphic form to ideas and proposals that were never visualised) from the book are a part of the exhibition.
