Cultural Re-Imaginations: Experiments in Creative Placemaking

Speaker: Indrani Baruah

May 14, 2014 | 6.30 pm
Somaiya Centre for Lifelong Learning, Mumbai

Indrani Baruah will share her ongoing cultural experiments in the public realm and the intuitive practice that has evolved over the years out of her interdisciplinary background. She will discuss the constantly evolving process, methodology and forms as manifested in her current experiments on the River Brahmaputra in Guwahati, Assam. Engaging with the ideas of ‘genius loci’ and placemaking in the context of the city, the river and the ‘collective cultural journey’, the three stages of the project Cultural Re-imaginations will be expanded upon.

Incorporating concepts from visual arts, architecture, vernacular crafts and cultural studies, Cultural Re-imaginations has attempted to challenge the traditional boundaries between art/architecture, artist/artisan, crafts/arts, public/private and inside/outside. The project has attempted to ‘create circumstances for unanticipated convergence of disciplines, ideas and people’ by becoming a platform for collaborative work between bamboo artisans, artists and boat-builders.

From re-imagining vernacular craft-forms in stage-I, to opening up different ways of encountering and experiencing the ‘environment’ and creating a sense of place in stage-II ; the current stage-III of the project set out to make new collective cultural journeys on the River and to explore thought-provoking initiatives engaging with the concept of art in the public realm. Indrani will discuss the evolving ideas and the challenges encountered in creating circumstances for participatory public art practice in the dynamic space of the river and the riverfront.

Indrani Baruah is an artist, architect and cultural researcher, who works at the intersection of visual arts, architecture and cultural studies. She was formally trained in architecture at School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi and later at School of Architecture and Allied Arts, University of Oregon. She studied Painting at ASUC Art Studios, U.C. Berkeley and Painting and Art History at Merritt College, California.