STUDIO . EXHIBITIONS
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Mumbai Articles
Artisans’, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai
November 13 - 25, 2014
Mumbai Articles is an urban portrait series which spans from 2009 to 2014, featuring 24 black-and-white aerial photographs from 10,000 ft above sea level. Accompanying each image is a record of air pollution levels on the corresponding day, as measured by the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board.
Supplementing the visual archive is a tactile installation of rare books related to Mumbai, dating back to the mid 1800's. Selected archival texts are juxtaposed with individual photographs, as a means of weaving historical depth with the imagery.
Madras Transit
The Folly @ Amethyst, Chennai
August 22 - 30, 2015
From the geometric street grids of Anna Nagar, to the banks of the Adyar River and beyond, Madras Transit is an urban portrait series featuring 24 colour photographs from 10,000 ft above sea level. Accompanying each image is a record of air pollution levels on the corresponding day, as measured by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board.
Mumbai North
Artisans’, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai
January 8 - 16, 2016
Mumbai North features 24 black-and-white urban aerial photographs of Mumbai's Suburbs, giving visual expression to the under-experienced ecologies of Mumbai. Spanning from Sanjay Gandhi National Park to Gorai Creek, Bhiwandi's Waral Lake to Powai, Vihar and Tulsi Lakes, this series engages with the remaining natural beauty that surrounds, and some cases, abounds.
Mumbai North also features the “Reading Room” - a tactile installation of more than two dozen rare archival books on Bombay dating back to the mid 1800's. Visitors to the exhibition are encouraged to “Please Touch” the books, to sit and read, and discover urban histories and processes of times past – many of which are yet finding fulfillment and expression in today's urban realities and built forms.
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Mumbai Shadows
Eighteenth-Century Firangi Chronicles of Bombay
Artisans’, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai
March 11 - 23, 2017
Mumbai Shadows chronicles the effects of the city - compositions inspired by the unique geographic and urban form of the Island City. Shadows are a consequence of the city's physical presence, while metaphorical shadows are the effects of the city, often found in inspired literature and art.
Black-and-white imagery is paired with first-hand accounts of Bombay from the 18th Century, providing an extreme contrast (and in some cases extreme similarities) to 21st-Century aerial photographs. Archival material is sourced from R.P. Karkaria's 1915 book "The Charm of Bombay," a deeply researched collective of more than 200 descriptive accounts of the city.
Mumbai Guidebooks, 1880 - 1980
100 years of Introductions to the Maximum City
Artisans’, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai
May 18 - 27, 2018
The Mumbai Guidebook Reading Room is a tactile exhibition of sixteen rare books and pamphlets dating from 1880 to 1980.
Intended for a diverse array of visitors, ranging from 19th-Century European travellers, to 20th-Century British soldiers, to 21st-Century cosmopolitan tourists, the collection is a chronological urban welcome through varied historical contexts.
Ahmedabad Walls I & The Patrick Geddes Reading Room
Kasturbhai Lalbhai Museum, Ahmedabad
October 21 - November 20, 2018
Ahmedabad Walls is a circumambulation of the Old City through 12 colour aerial photographs. Interwoven between layers of urban imagery is Patrick Geddes' 1915 “Notes on Ahmedabad,” a passionate (although largely unsuccessful) defence in favour of retaining Ahmedabad's 15th Century Fortifications.
Supplementing the exhibition is the Patrick Geddes Reading Room, a collection of rare books by and about the Father of Modern Town Planning.
Hyderabad Biophilia & Ahmedabad Walls II & The Patrick Geddes Reading Room
Krishna Kriti Art & Culture Festival, Hyderabad
January 3 - 8, 2019
Hyderabad Biophilia is a historical exploration of man's affinity towards the natural world in Hyderabad, through the unrealized visions of Patrick Geddes and Mohammed Fayazuddin. The exhibitoin features a series of contemporary aerial photographs of Hyderabad juxtaposed against early 20th-Century urban plans.
In 1922, at the request of the Nizam, Patrick Geddes visited Hyderabad to assist in the planning of the first Urdu-medium University in South Asia. Geddes’ draft report for the University is on public display for the first time, along with a collective of publications by and about the Scottish polymath.
Ahmedabad Walls III & The Patrick Geddes Reading Room
Hyderabad Literature Festival, Hyderabad
January 25 - 27, 2019
The third edition of Ahmedabad Walls took place in the City of Pearls as part of the Hyderabad Literature Festival. The Patrick Geddes Reading Room also traveled with the collection of aerial images. The most memorable moment of the exhibition was when someone inquired, “Excuse me, are you Mr. Geddes? Did you write all of these books?”
Geddes’ Bombay
Artisans’, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai
March 4 - 5, 2019
Geddes’ Bombay explores Scottish polymath Patrick Geddes’ unrealised town-planning reports on Thane and Bandra. Early 20th-Century archival documents from the Maharashtra State Archives are juxtaposed with contemporary aerial photographs of suburban Mumbai. The exhibition is paired with an illustrated talk by Elaine MacGillivray (University of Edinburgh project archivist) titled “Evergreen: Patrick Geddes and the Environment in Equilibrium.”
Ahmedabad Walls IV & The Patrick Geddes Reading Room
Matthew Architecture Gallery, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh
October 3 - 25, 2019
The fourth edition of Ahmedabad Walls took place in Edinburgh, the city in Scotland where Geddes’ penned much of his “Notes on Ahmedabad.” The exhibition was part of the University of Edinburgh’s “South Asia Week” and the Patrick Geddes Centre’s “Geddes’ Week.” This was also the first exhibition that Kairav Stephens (three years old at the time) helped install.
Bombay Imagined I & The Bombay Reading Room
Arthshila, Ahmedabad
October 1 - November 1, 2022
Bombay Imagined at Arthshila is the first exhibition following the publication of the book by the same name in early 2022.
Beginning in 1670, Bombay Imagined: An Illustrated History of the Unbuilt City tells the story of 200 unrealised urban visions — aspirations of an evolved metropolis boasting everything from humane housing and expanded parks to sanitation systems and more. Ideas that never saw the light of the day are richly illustrated with archival drawings, contemporary speculations and artistic overlays, illuminating long-lost futures from the city’s unbuilt past.
The exhibition also features archival sketches that preceded contemporary speculations, as well as The Bombay Reading Room, a library of rare books which visitors are encouraged to touch, read and explore.
Bombay Imagined II
Sustainable Futures from Mumbai’s Unbuilt Past
Conscious Collective, Vikhroli, Mumbai
December 9 - 10, 2023
The second Bombay Imagined exhibition took place at Conscious Collective in Vikhroli, in collaboration with the Godrej Design Lab and Godrej Archives. The exhibition featured a selection of 78 sustainability-focused unbuilt plans from the city’s 350-year history.
A large-scale topographic model was a centerpiece of the exhibit, featuring a complex network of strings that identified typologies and locations of all urban imaginations on display.