BackDelhi, India
Iram Ghufran, Sarai CSDS
Delhi Commons
August 2010 February 2011
Delhi Commons
The mis en scene of the Delhi Commons process:
With the approaching Commonwealth Games in the city, Delhi is witnessing large scale structural transformations. A new metro rail network, stadiums, hotels and housing are under construction. The city as more malls and entertainment complexes than ever before. A way of life is changing forever. This change is marked by contest and conflict. Large urban settlements have had to make way for the new imagination Delhi has for itself. Lakhs have been displaced to create space for the ever expanding girth of the city. The core of this transformation lies in the way the city is inhabited, experienced and understood.
Aims / Objective / Goals of project
>> To use artistic expression to comment on the complex narrative of the South Asian city in context of the Commonwealth Games
>> To produce a critical narrative of the Games through mementoes and souvenir postcards
>> To produce art‐ work that outlasts the Games, and travels to other cities, and contexts
>> To produce an ‘image commons’ where photographs are shared and circulated
>> To create a context for collaborative image gathering, and creative expression.
Brief description of project
Delhi Commons is barter - a photograph for a story, and a story for a photograph
Delhi Commons is a mobile photo studio
Delhi Commons is a set of postcards that travel the world
Delhi Commons is photo archive
Delhi Commons is an exhibition
Delhi Commons is a process that brings into focus collaborative acts of making, showing and sharing against the backdrop of the Commonwealth Games in Delhi. So, we begin with a city, marked by large‐ scale structural changes, looking towards a mega event unforeseen in its long history, and expecting to host thousands of visitors in the coming months. A group of art and media practitioners will be invited to join Delhi Commons for various processes. We will be making photographs and collecting found images of the city from old calendars, postcards, family albums, etc to create a digital photo archive.
At the same time, we will keep making our own images of a historical city with monuments, architectural heritage and ruins. We will also take photos of the ‘new’ city with its malls, multiplexes and metro stations. We re‐visit the city not seen on the tourist map at all- the city of wholesale vegetable markets, junk yards, the river front, computer spare parts markets, and pirated dvd’s. Other photographers will also be invited to share their photos through the image archive.
Keeping frameworks of studio photography in mind, we will set up temporary mobile photo studios with Commonwealth Games theme backdrops, in various locations in the city. The studio backdrops will be created with the images from the Delhi Commons archive. People can use their personal cameras, cell phones et al to take their photos against our backdrops. And for every print we give, as an exchange, we will ask people to recount a story, an anecdote about the hospitality of this city. This material and experience will go in the making of the art‐ work for the final exhibition.
We will also be producing mementoes and souvenir prototypes with the Commonwealth Games as a theme. These deigns will be publicly available via our blog, and will be part of the final exhibition.
The post card series will be designed to be provocative, as well as sensitive to the current flux. The postcards will be widely distributed in various locations in the city, and posted elsewhere to art centers, universities, individuals, activists, artists, filmmakers and workers of all kinds. The image of the Games will be a message that travels to a range of contexts and practices.
Information on various processes/ events of Delhi Commons will be posted on the Delhi Commons blog.
Names of collaborators will be made available as and when people join the process.
Time frame of project
[August 2010 February 2011]
Projected output of project (is it a workshop, a discussion, a showing etc.)
>> A series of postcards
>> Prototypes for various Commonwealth Games mementoes
>> A digital photo archive
>> An exhibition of work produced during the process
Who is your target audience for your project?
>> Anybody and everybody, online and offline
How do you propose to disseminate information about the project to your target audience?
>> Facebook group/ page
>> Mailing lists
>> Flyers for offline
How do you think your project will create impact on the art communities/the cultures that you want to engage with? How will it develop the field of your art form?
The photographic image can produce to a great extent the imagination a city has for itself. Often it is through the selection of images and processes of elimination, that a city remembers an event and a time. I want to use the ‘remembering’ quality of the photographic image to produce a narrative of the city in the year of the Commonwealth Games. The photos will speak thousands of words, tell many stories and add to the mythology of the city of 2010.
At the same time, I wish to experiment with photo studio practices and exhibition frameworks. Delhi Commons works more or less in a ‘barter economy’ structure. Photographs and postcards in exchange for stories and anecdotes. This exchange will have its unexpected moments and chain of events – the unpredictability of which excites me and other collaborators.
The process will culminate in an experimental exhibition, exploring the relationship between photography and performance, between art and acts of remembering, and between individual creative processes and collaborative frameworks.
Contact
Iram Ghufran
Sarai Media Lab
29 Rajpur Road
Delhi 110054
India
www.sarai.net/
Email: iram.ghufran at gmail.com