A Film by Krishnendu Bose
English (with subtitles)
56 minutes / 2009
Commissioned by Max Muller Bhawan.
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The Latent City :
Delhi. This city is old. 2500 years old. The city as a palimpsest. Layers of accumulated history and memory. The city transforms. The water turns black. The trees turn yellow. The city turns a foggy green. And the poor turn to dust. Dialectics. The city is transforming to become more efficient and modern. A thought emerges. Selected artists from all the world over and India are invited to this city. In its transformative moment. To create art, in the everyday. 8 politically charged spaces are identified to be excavated and be transformed by the artists. 48 degrees Celsius. A reminder of our warming cities. The first public art ecology project in India is shaped. For 10 days in December 2008.
Cameras whirr and a film re- constructs the art. An attempt is made to record and transcend the imagery. Using snatches of artist conversation. Splicing their politics and performance. A video re-presentation, is sliced in between the chronicle of the disappearing city. Scattered written words unlock the larger narrative of the city. A debate around the disabling of publics and public spaces. A film re-surfaces. Nudges us to re-examine the latent citizenry. Urges to re- imagine the future of our cities. Through the ‘eye glass’ of public art.
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Voices
from the film
 "The Jantar mantar being in Delhi is almost already a kind of gift to start with….in a way there is already public art in open space done 300 years ago… "
Friso Witteveen, Artist
“you see how people throw the puja’s packed in plastic into the river and how the waste is just going directly into the river…for an outsider view it’s a very strong contradiction…”
Haubitz & Zoche, Artist
“Extinction then becomes a phenomenon, a natural outcome… it is not an event which you can look in isolation…”
Ravi Agarwal , Artist
“We came off the chandini chowk metro …as we walked through all these places I really began to get a sense of water lying beneath the roads, beneath the traffic….”
Sheba Chhachhi , Artist
“We still have a notion that public art means you put a statue on a pedestal or in a round about and that’s public art…”
Vivan Sundaram , Artist
“this territory that you occupy that we are involved in , the imagination is what is going to allow to deal with these issue that are confronting us…”
Mary Miss, Artist
“by doing this project maybe get the public to think about art in a different way…wishing in a different way …maybe to look at those trees in a different way…”
Chrysanne Stathacos , Artist
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For a copy of the DVD, or screening requests, write to:
Krishnendu Bose,
Earthcare Productions,
B-91, Defence Colony, New Delhi, India.
Off: +91-11-24334171, 24332005.
Fax: +91-11-24334068. E-mail: earthcare1@vsnl.com |
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