On March 1, our artists, Hamdasti mentors Sharan Lal and Paula Sengupta and other guests got together at Studio 21 for the first Chitpur Revisited presentation. Sharan kicked off the discussion with a presentation on urban typologies starting with Palmanova, Italy in 1570 and ending with Brasilia, Brazil. He compared these highly articulated, planned typologies with the organic formation of Chitpur and compared how they affect the communities that live in these diverse urban spaces.
Sharan's talk, helped us contextualize our interventions at various heritage sites within the larger social and spatial relationships on Chitpur Road. It helped us to think about how our designs could augment the positive social functions of public spaces on Chitpur and perhaps even counter the negatives of Chitpur's unregulated organic growth.
Sharan's talk, helped us contextualize our interventions at various heritage sites within the larger social and spatial relationships on Chitpur Road. It helped us to think about how our designs could augment the positive social functions of public spaces on Chitpur and perhaps even counter the negatives of Chitpur's unregulated organic growth.
The artists then presented their work in progress and we divided up our audience into feedback groups, with each group giving feedback to one project. Some of the key points that emerged was the need to involve girls from the area, the relevance of integrating technology and social media into our community based approaches and the need to find alternative stories of Chitpur by going beyond the street front into residential spaces.
Ananda Bazar Pratika, the leading news channel in the State, came for the event and did a wonderful little piece on our project that evening.