What makes India Urban ?
AEDES Gallery, Berlin
2009
This installation draws on the parallel world of informal businesses that flourish in the interstices between the formal structures of Indian streets. The ‘architecture’ of this street market emerges out of responses to multiple needs; displaying goods, attracting buyers, negotiating the legality of the shops, the security of the goods and so on. In Mumbai, where space is at a premium, the characteristic features of these shops emerge from acts of maximizing space in creative ways. As the banal uniformity of the global aesthetic unquestioningly replaces the vibrant material culture of Indian cities, street markets with their unique visual assemblages remain valuable representatives of the dynamic and heterogeneous popular cultures of the city.
The BOX attempts to capture the essence of this myriad, volatile and adaptive world of the Indian street.
