I just spent a few minutes looking at the pictures of our slum settlement the others have posted. It struck me that the interiors are very similar to the ones we created in Stockholm when we had our introduction workshop ages ago (no pictures, sorry, it was before the digital camera age). Many groups built the same kind of communal space, around an improvised table of some kind. I think the workshop was a very good team building exercise (both the one I did my first week in School of Architecture and this one). How do we build a community? It's interesting that our identity as urban body-students suddenly got a different meaning when we had to face adversity (AngryMan) and try to achieve cooperation. Standing around a fire in the cold night is probably one of the most basic communal activities, and a very enjoyable one. Too bad television has entered our lives.
The two most important things I take with me from the workshop is the fact that we became a team and the sensibility to creative solutions that Daniele talked about. Without having myself experienced hands-on the kind of problems that arise in such a situation I would probably be blind to them in Dharavi. The pictures Daniele showed us were simply amazing, each one telling the story of a problem and its solution. It's interesting that some of the creative solutions were a bit difficult to identify as creativity, for example the picture showing oil on the pavement. Who would have guessed it was an "urban device" to keep people away? Only a true detective can unfold the story. It's not enough to watch, we need to talk to people to understand where and how their creative solutions are crucial.
I found it very inspiring to work with photography. With a digital camera, it's almost too easy to take an unlimited amount of pictures without reflecting on how they fit together, or how they are meaningful. To me creativity is only possible where there are limitations. Freedom is often supposed to be a requirement for creativity, but I think the opposite is closer to the truth - Daniele's Fantasy Saves the Planning is a good example. I have been reflecting on what these limitations can be in Dharavi, when it comes to photography. My "baddest" picture may be a starting point. But it arouses an uneasiness in me, because it clearly treats the people in the picture as objects. At the same time, I start reading their body language, without engaging in the constant search for the eye that is programmed in us to do unconsciously when we look at people, a phenomenon called the fixational eye. I'm not sure whether I want to use this very manieristic method.
I also had an interesting discussion with Stefano about photography and the way to deal with people in the street when taking pictures. Should one approach them and ask for permission, making them self-conscious, or is it better to just take the picture, preferably without them noticing (which I do sometimes)? Stefano's reply was interesting. He said that when he was doing the later, it was because he was chasing an image - I don't remember his exact words. He doesn't find that interesting anymore. I became very aware of my own chase for a good picture, in purely esthetic terms. What I find interesting in his attitude, is that it makes it clear that photography is both a result, and a process. Maybe the process should prevail. Maybe I should be more focused on the process, rather than chasing the good picture. It's an interesting ambiguity. I think the workshop has made us aware about the fact that photography is a medium which needs to be used in a very conscious way.
So following this newfound interest in the process, I decided to document in a simple sequence something that still gets my attention everyday, although I am becoming a bit "hemmablind" (swedish word for becoming blind to one's surroundings when seeing them repeatedly) since I moved to the Netherlands in july last year: the enormous windows on street level. They make the streets so interesting, framing private life (or public life for the people inside), warm light illuminating the pavement during the night. This would be unthinkable in many other places. The first sequence is from Rotterdam, the second one from Amsterdam. I notice now that there is another ambiguity at work here: dwellings and commercial spaces have the same kind of windows, and are both present in the pictures.
Guys, I can't believe our luck! It turns out that the Holi Festival takes place on march 22nd this year. It's a spring festival where people throw colours at each other on the streets, accompanied by drums and music. If you're into bollywood movies, you're probably familiar with it. I know a lot of us are flying back early on the 23rd of march, so it will be an amazing way of celebrating the end of our workshop. This is something I've wanted to experience for a very long time. Still can't believe it's going to happen!
Quoted from Mumbai Today: "The western disturbance hitting north India had an influence over Mumbai too where minimum temperatures dipped to 8.5 degrees Celsius with weathermen saying on Friday, it might be the coldest day in the metropolis since 1962."
The discussion we had the other day about formal vs informal reminded me of this video of an indian crossroads. As I have never been there, I cannot say if this is how it usually works in India, but it looks pretty informal to me :)
One thing I would like to discuss further with the group is the fact that it seems that slums all over the world are very similar, with some small local variations. Within the formal planning of cities there is a lot more variations (although the grid has proven very effective and is widely used). I would like to investigate what the rules are that make the slums so similar. Could this be programmed easily? Are there any studies about this?
I also read an interesting interview with Mike Davis, done shortly after the publication of Planet of Slums by BLDGBLOG. Check it out, it's worth reading. One quote particularily got my attention: "I think the slum is universally recognized by military planners today as a challenge. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there’s a great leap forward in our understanding of what’s happening on the peripheries of Third World cities because of the needs of Pentagon strategists and local military planners. For instance, Andean anthropology made a big leap forward in the 1960s and early 1970s when Che Guevara and his guerilla fighters became a problem. I think there’s a consensus, both on the left and the right, that it’s the slum peripheries of poor Third World cities that have become a decisive geopolitical space. That space is now a military challenge – as much as it is an epistemological challenge, both for sociologists and for military planners."
Here's another quote about the slums being part of the same problem as the american suburbs, in terms of urbanization: "The real challenge is to make cities better as cities. I think Planet of Slums addresses the reality that every complaint made by sociologists in the 1950s and 60s about American suburbia is now true on an exponentially increased scale with poor cities: all the problems with sprawl, all the problems with an increasing amount of time and resources tied up in commutes to work, all the problems with environmental pollution, all the problems with the lack of traditional urban apparatuses of leisure, recreation, social services and so on."
I just spent a few minutes looking at the pictures of our slum settlement the others have posted. It struck me that the interiors are very similar to the ones we created in Stockholm when we had our introduction workshop ages ago (no pictures, sorry, it was before the digital camera age). Many groups built the same kind of communal space, around an improvised table of some kind. I think the workshop was a very good team building exercise (both the one I did my first week in School of Architecture and this one). How do we build a community? It's interesting that our identity as urban body-students suddenly got a different meaning when we had to face adversity (AngryMan) and try to achieve cooperation. Standing around a fire in the cold night is probably one of the most basic communal activities, and a very enjoyable one. Too bad television has entered our lives. 
