mardi 25 novembre 2014

KHOJ Pune International Workshop 2015

The Talera Institute of Fine and Applied Arts (TIFA), Pune, India

February 14th to March 1st 



Towards a Human Topography


     I’m interested in transversal explorations, in transitions, in looking at the geography of Pune as a city planner, an architect, a visitor, and an artist. Spending time in Pune would be an opportunity to apply this unique point of view to the city and its inhabitants, and to document the results.

     Pune is one of the biggest cities in India, with a 10% annual demographic growth and now more than 5 million inhabitants. For centuries, this territory has witnessed hundreds of thousands of births and deaths.

     Those past, present, future, and possible lives are still among us. I believe that every change in our life leaves behind us a chrysalis; a trace of our previous incarnation. These chrysali are ephemeral, and soon vanish. Nevertheless, their traces accumulate like sediment in a river, eventually solidifying-- contributing to the formation of geological layers of human existence.

     It’s easy to see the hills of Pune, but how can we imagine the city’s vast human topography?

     It’s this living geography I’d like to reveal during the residence.


Workshop : Taking the Pulse


     For 10 days, I’ll create the chrysali* of 10 inhabitants of very distinctive parts of Pune, from the chic neighborhood of Koregaon park to the potter’s village by the banks of the Mula-Mutha river. The chrysali would be created in the workshop, but would travel across the city to be displayed in the subjects’ places of origin. There, we would photograph the chrysali in context. By so doing, I hope to analyze the impact of the different environments on their inhabitants. Finally, each chrysalis would be incorporated in the final installation: a conglomeration of chrysali, a new kind of cityscape.

     *Chrysali are moulds of body realized with a thin, flexible, semi-transparent fabric, usually raw silk. The shape is moulded by hand and fixed in place with diluted glue.


Final Installation : Inverted Topography


     A scale model is the traditional tool in architecture and urban design used to examine a distant past (the shape of an ancient city, for example) or reveal a future shape (a projection of a city 100 years from now). Therefore, the chrysali will be put on an elevated horizontal structure made of bamboo, the traditional material used for scaffolding in India. Scaffolding are for buildings what chrysali are for insects, a suspended state during which hidden transformations can occur.

      In this way, visitors will look up a life-size ceiling of chrysali instead of looking down at a small scale model; inverting the traditional perspective of most architectural prototypes. The model will become the very architecture of the gallery space, enveloping the visitors as another kind of chrysalis. The map of Pune will be projected onto the chrysali in an exploration of the differences between the geographical and the human landscape.

    Video and multimedia documentation of the transformative process of making the chrysali will be displayed at the entrance to the gallery space.