[En]counters: The Fluid City | Documentary

February 23, 2012 | 6.30 pm
Goethe Hall, Max Mueller Bhavan Mumbai
In partnership with Germany + India 2011-2012, ArtOxygen and Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai

Water plays a paradoxical and contradictory role in Mumbai. Both scarce and abundant, it surrounds the city and is a vital part of its landscape; yet most people have limited or no access to it. Contested debates circulate whether water is a private commodity or a public resource, with the urgent need to manage our ecosystems in a sustainable manner. Water has mythical, symbolic, political, economic and cultural significance and the constant struggle between desire and denial of this basic need in the extremities of Mumbai raises urgent questions of difference, citizenship and social relations.

This documentary film is of the public art project [en]counters: The Fluid City’ held in January 2011 that consisted of site-specific interventions, actions and performances by seven artists from Mumbai. Drawing from the city’s history and geography, these interventions brought into perspective the social, political, ecological and economic value of water. Edited by Kavita Pai, this documentary is produced by the Mohile Parikh Center and ArtOxygen with the support of the Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai.

Artists: Tushar Jog, Pradeep Mishra, Prajakta Potnis, Sharmila Samant, Vijay Sekhon, Uday Shanbhag and Parag Tandel

This screening is part of the exhibition examples to follow! expeditions in aesthetics and sustainability that intends to encourage the cultural and aesthetic dimension of sustainability into awareness of the senses and aims at raising awareness for the fact that a constructive sustainability cannot make do without the arts and sciences.