Report:
The event started with the lecture by Charles Landry. He observed that city development all over the world is often a technical process, with little or no attention to the people dimension. He identified the ‘blindspots’ or missing factors in city making as follows: sensory realm, the emotions of people who will inhabit the space, environmental psychology, artistic thinking and the cultural lens.
Mr. Landry opined that a creative city would create confident citizens, because it would generate conditions that allow fresh thinking. It would be a space that communicates to its people. To make a space creative, the effort should be to “embed a culture of imagination into the genetic code of the city”.
He likened the apparent chaos in a city to a jazz jam session, in that it allows space for all kinds of expressions. He observed that cities that do well have ordinary, innovative and visionary leaders, who believe in making a creative city for the world rather than in the world.
Mr. Landry showed a number of examples – both creative and not creative - from cities all over the world. Particularly amusing was a photograph of a building in a European city – the building was en route to the city airport, and the front of the building was covered with arrows pointing in the direction of the airport!
After his presentation, the panelists responded briefly based on their experiences of engaging in creative pursuits in the city of Mumbai.
Rahul DaCunha wondered how creative Mumbai could be, when negative changes happen continuously and where the citizens do not trust the government.
However, he did point to the citizens’ initiatives such as ‘Celebrate Bandra’, which are positive forces for bringing the community together and creating spaces for a creative exchange
Kiran Nagarkar continued in the same vein and said that identification of the problems is more crucial than the solution, and unfortunately for Mumbai, those who hold the power are continuously in denial. While the campaigns to turn Mumbai into Shanghai exist, these tend to become opportunities for corruption than anything else.
K. Sridhar reflected upon the fact that a huge population in Mumbai is from out of Mumbai, which looks at Mumbai as a place to ‘stay’, not a place to ‘live’. He reiterated Rahul DaCunha’s observation about the usefulness of small pluralistic initiatives to revitalise communities.
Sudhir Patwardhan spoke about how spaces expand and collapse, between sprawling suburban high-rises and the dying mill culture. He displayed some of his select paintings which primarily dealt with people in the city and the spaces they inhabit, and shared how he personally responds to a sense of ‘community’ in small crowded places. Some paintings brought out beautifully how some individuals respond with numbness to a space that is not creative.
During the open dialogue that followed, the importance of mobilising small communities to decide what they want to do with their localities was stressed by members of the audience.
