Evidence of Mumbai's colonial past will be present in the town's chawls, rickety tenements stacked on top of one another like depressing LEGO bricks.
The buildings sprung up around the town to accommodate the poor working class, similar to the employees who toiled for the success of the East India Company within the nineteenth century. Chawls were typically overcrowded, unsanitary and structurally dangerous – in fact the British merchants themselves lived in huge bungalows, out of sight of such things.
Today in Mumbai you’ll be able to still find chawls in poorer areas of the town. You can even find their influence in a fascinating recent exhibition on the Berkeley Art Museum and the Pacific Film Archive. Indian-born artist Amol K. Patil altered the museum's partitions to look rough and weathered, mimicking the layers of old paint in chalk. Paintings and strange sculptures made from blobby, organic masses of clay solid in bronze hang all over the place, their hands and feet protruding as if in protest.
Through this strange yet familiar art, the museum writes, Patil “sheds light on the social and political injustices these communities face and the dignity, creativity and ingenuity with which they proceed to fight for his or her rights. “
Details: The show is open January 18 through April 27, Wednesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at 2155 Center St., Berkeley. $18 general admission, bampfa.org.
Originally published:
image credit : www.mercurynews.com