Hello? Is anybody home (still)?

(I wonder if anyone would still be reading this diary)
Photos from expo





It's a pity that the expo was only there for 3 days (2 days of real exhibition time, to be exact) I really wanted it to stay longer. It is interesting to see how different the approaches are from different group. I guess we all enjoyed the trip and the setting up process.

...though I also think a lot of us are confused about the design studio that is following the Urban Body part....

...but why? (please just let me grumble a bit and bear with me for a while)

Currently feeling a bit disgruntled and pointless. Have been working throughout the weekend for the exhibition. But why? Just for the sake of exhibition? Or is there something more?

Same with the blog and storyboard. The things written were very brief. The way people work for the storyboard is so different and incomparable. Using the same format seems meaningless now, isn't it?

Well I don't want to whine here like a baby. Just a bit fed up with the work and perhaps a bit frustrated due to the torture of a light diarrhoea and sore throat. It is strange that I only get the diarrhoea when I came back to the Netherlands. My friend said it is because of my decline in immunal defence and my decrease in will power and stamina to fight against any germs and bacteria.

Please let me stay healthy until the presentation. Ah, perhaps over the weekend because I still want to go to AW's Indian Reunion Party.

Give and Take

There is a Chinese saying that being able to give is more blessed than taking. “施比受更有福”

How willing and readily are we to “give” in Dharavi, in Mumbai? For me, I feel that I am taking too much from the neighbourhood. All these help, all these nice people, all these friendly faces. By intruding into their community, walking through, asking questions, we are doing nothing but quenching information from the locals. Sometimes I feel like I owe them something and I wanted to give something back. I don’t want to play Robin Hood or anything. The people in Dharavi are satisfied and contented with what they have.

In terms of happiness, who are the “have-s” and who are the “have not-s”?

Now I really sound like a social worker……

50 Happy Angels

Me and My Home in Dharavi

A low-tech multi-media creative artwork competition
40 out of 50 responded, all made with a lot of effort.
Genuineness and authenticity is the most precious, also their uncorrupted minds.
I am simply touched by all these sincere smiley faces. They are all angels.

Unity in Complexity-- Social Nagar

“SOCIAL” suggest PROGRESSION. These people are also achievers, even though they are always happy and contented because of what they have.

It is amazing that so many different things can coexist in such a small community. Religion, industrial, place of origin.
It is also interesting to note the complexity of the subdivided Social Nagar, and of course to see the structure and social organization from within.

“We are all one.” Waqar Khan’s campaign in promoting unity among different religion.

Interviewing people and walking through the spaces, making checklists: economy, checked; demography, checked; history, checked; social structure, checked.

Alright. Now we have this abundant information.
Although we are collecting information from locals, a very bottom-up approach, I still feel that I have a very top-down perspective.

“Surveying is also an important part of cartography.” I keep reminding myself whenever I feel doubtful of what I am actually trying to do.

MG Road

Study of street perspective by photography
Study of street by garbage photography

In and Out

In and out. In and out. In and out. In and out……..

The amazingly different microclimate inside and outside of the slum can really stimulate our senses. It is strange that we actually enjoy staying inside those small alleys that creeps among the massive slum area. They are cooler, better shaded and have more stories to tell

Crossing the slums is just like walking inside a big labyrinth. It is amazing how people can remember all these narrow routes and pathways. It is hard to keep myself oriented.

These crowds of people that are following us!! Are we studying them or are we being studied?

'Reality' Tour

5 lives a day and sensory mapping

The boundary—a dead man, half of a dead dog and several dead rats. To lose your life in Dharavi is too easy. However, I am surprised at the indifference of people on the train when the accident happened. Are they really that insensitive? Are they really used to these sudden deaths on train tracks or are they overwhelmed by seeing 3 foreigners walking on train tracks? It’s just too shocking. The 'how are you'-s and whistles from the people on the train just heightened my annoyance. Their foolish grins (sorry for being too personal, but I really don't understand why they can react in such a way) just make me mad.

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I suddenly remembered the “non-trespassable boundaries” in our case study of the Caracas. In Dharavi, these boundaries exist outside the slum rather then in the inside. At least this is my impression after walking through the slum in so many days.

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Sight.
Sound.
Smell.
Vibe.

It is really hard just to focus on one of these senses, because the situation in Mumbai is so chaotic. Everything is just too much. The sensations are saturated.

Cartography

car·tog·ra·phy/kɑrˈtɒgrəfi/–noun
the production of maps, including construction of projections, design, compilation, drafting, and reproduction.

A new word to me. It is ironic that we are doing this mapping exercise while I don't evenknow the proper terminologies for it.

ANTONIO SCARPONI...Does it ring any bell?






http://www.conceptualdevices.com/ENG/index.html
It is interesting to see the way he represent all these facts. I like his workshop and feel that it is kind of a pity that it's so short.



And of course, our own intervention is not to be missed.



Finally, a proper solution to deal with all the excessive bikes and pigeons

Recollecting memories

Currently trying to recall what we have been doing in Mumbai for the past 3 weeks by reading the notes that I have jot down.

From the lecture by Kalpana Sharma (author of Rediscovering Dharavi)
"They (the inhabitants of Dharavi) don't identify themselves as coming from Dharavi but smaller regions like the Koliwada or 13 Compound Area. It is the outsiders which refer to them as coming from Dharavi"

This is probably very true.
The social communities inside Dharavi are very characterized and have very strong bondings within their own communities, i.e. a strong sense of identity. Even though for us, it is not easy to distinguish these somehow 'invisible borders', the inhabitants themselves are very clear about them. It would be interesting to see how neighbouring communities interact with each other. (Since during the last part of our research, every group only concentrate in their own 'nagars' but somehow forgot about the interactions and relationships between/ amonf different nagars.)

Biomapping

Biomapping workshop

The sensation of a blind-folded Arie-Wilem, walking through Delft city centre to Ikea

Production by Arie, Jasper and me

From India, With Love

I'm back.

It's hard to write something that could summarize my experience for the past 3 weeks, for I had such a big change in perspective, emotion, sensation and outlook after this journey. But there is one thing that hasn't change from beginning till the end-- Mumbai is truly a great place. Great food, great movies, great music and great people. Now I am sounding a bit touristic, am I not?

However, it's indeed the nice people that I've met in this trip which made the whole experience particularly fruitful and special. From the friends we worked together with in J.J. School, to just any little kid on the street that shook my hand, ask what my name is and requested for a photo. I'm touched by all these friendly and smiley faces, and also ,of course, by their genuine personalities.

Even though sometimes I feel doubtful about my role as an architectural student in this project, I definitely have gained some insight and became (somehow, I hope) a better person. My parents said I will definitely encounter to something shocking in the trip that will have some impact on me. I guess there are too much of these impacts in the trip. The accident at the train tracks, the chaotic traffics, the ethicity of Indian culture, walking in Dharavi.............


Shall update again later.

Slum deconstruction (sequence)

Bio-mapping

http://biomapping.net/
http://www.softhook.com/




Websites of Christian. Really love his works. I think he is an extremely intelligent person to design such a bio-mapping device. The process is extremely interesting. But more importantly, the way of organizing data that we have collected is not easy. I wanted to repeat the bio-mapping process, but perhaps it is just out of curiosity. I guess presenting the data is also an important issue to discuss.


It is interesting how we like to "read" things that are graphically represented rather than in long text. The same with blogs.


A long p.s.:
We have been such healthy persons and all of a sudden we have these imparied senses for one afternoon. Besides feeling strange, I guess the "healthy" senses would become much sharper than they used to be.

To most people, the feeling of disorientation is intimidating. With the ear defender and the blindfolds on, I really could not imagine how Helen Keller can live in such a world without sight and sound. (Although she was blind and deaf since she was born, and that made her dumb also)

A short p.p.s.:
I still like this map of Stockport best.

Digesting

What will happen when too much information comes to you all at once? Nauseatic? Excited? Confused?

Right now I have that whatever feeling. These days I have jot down so many things in my sketchbook yet I don't have much time to think them over. Sometimes I just hate myself for being such a slow thinker.

Anyway, I just feel doubtful about our discussion this morning on Imperialism. It seems that very often, only the economic sphere is being considered in the post-colonial countries. What about the cultural sphere? This question is bothering me because there is such a phenomenon in Hong Kong that even we have been returned to China for 10 years, we still call ourselves Hong Kong-er instead of Chinese. Some people even reject being connected (in any way) to the mainland. I mean this is definitely an effect on the local people because we have been under colonial rule.

Second doubt of today is: Am I wrong to say that every nation/ country have certain degree of Imperialism (well at least in their attitude)?


_________________________
Currently doing a crash course of Heidegger in wikipedia. His thoughts are not that easy to follow, especially for a person with no philosophical bkgd (like me).

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My friend once made a comment that we alsways digest things that we learn from school (literally digest in Chinese), but we never get rid of the waste. I guess I am having a knowledge constipation.

We survived!

cold, sleepy and extremely tired
shall update again later

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1030 pm

It has been 12 hours since I left the backyard of the BK-- our slum settlement. Yet the experience of the past 2 days were still memorable.

The settlement was an accomplishment by the 37 of us. It belongs to us. It is really a pity that not everyone stayed for the night though, because it was particularly that experience that put me into thinking.

Building the informal settlement at the backyard of our faculty is a very good experience, but I would say that the experience is not complete without staying there in your own shelter, which you call "home" for one night. Some people may think that we are crazy to stay for the night. Indeed, without any sleeping bags and fire and the idea of staying out at night in a self-built shelter sounds very insane. (Maybe because of the coldness of last night? What will happen if last night was much warmer?) But the 3 of us-- Stephan, Jasper and I, survived, and I believe all of us were happy that we actually stayed. The experience of staying in such a small, cramp self-built space with two other people who are actually millimetres away from you is simply unforgettable. I would also say that it is a pity that I am kind of overwhelmed by the coldness and I forgot to stay alert to what is happening in the environment. I guess if the security guards/ police come for us, I would not know what to do and I may end up in the prison. But these -- weather, external interference-- are things that slum dwellers need to face every single minute. It is reality in their life (actually I feel like I am in some kind of reality TV show last night). When I come to think of the fact that millions of people through out the world is actually leading such a life, my heart turned sour. I couldn't help but keep thinking what we can do to all these people (NOT in an architectural sense). Money donation? Going there to help as volunteer? Or do they actually need people to help? Are they contented with their situation?

"Everybody is his own architect." This phrase suddenly popped into my mind, when I am looking at the slums and the fact that people actually build their own houses.

Caged houses in HK (II)

from flickr.com

Pirate subdivided apartments in Hong Kong

These photos were taken by me when I went for a visit to these apartments in March 2007.

The conditions in these apartment are better than those in the caged housing, but you can see that it is not really that satisfactory. In these settlements, one apartment with one bathroom and a kitchen is ususally shared by about 10 families. These families, with an average of 3 - 4 people, live in rooms smaller than 10 sq m. Most of these rooms do not have any windows and air conditioning devices. The living conditions are very poor. A lot of the inhabitants are immigrants from mainland China. Some of them could even be illegal immigrants. They came here not to find job, but to get the Hong Kong citizenship. It is very strange because a lot of these immigrants actually live a much better live back in mainland China. Without the citizenship, they cannot actually work in Hong Kong. Therefore I believe the shift in population is more related to the political interest of people.

After reading Mike Davis' , I couldn;t help but ask myself if these could also be called slums, or are they merely low-income housing.

The facade of these buildings would look something like this:

You can see the density of the building and also the additional (illegal) structures that were added in the facade of the building. In fact there was a time that people live illegally at the rooftop houses. I think Davis also mentioned this type of housing in HK somewhere in his book.

Caged houses in HK (I)

Slums

An interesting article from the National Geographic about slums in Mumbai:: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0705/feature3/


I remember we were discussing how to define the term "slum" in class. I believe that it is hard to draw a precise definition for it, as slums differs from region to region, I have found sth online which seems to be interesting (and also cleared out a bit of misconception about slums)

The United Nations agency UN-HABITAT defines a slum as a heavily populated urban area characterised by substandard housing and squalor. The term traditionally referred to housing areas that were once respectable but which deteriorated as the original dwellers moved on to newer and better parts of the city, but has come to include the vast informal settlements found in cities in the developing world. The word comes from "back slum," meaning back room and later "back alley."

Although their characteristics vary between geographic regions, they are usually inhabited by the very poor or socially disadvantaged. Slum buildings vary from simple shacks to permanent and well-maintained structures. Most slums lack clean water, electricity, sanitation and other basic services.

Slums may be distinguished from ghettos in that ghetto refers to a neighborhood based on shared ethinicty. Other terms which are sometimes used interchangeably with slum include favela and shantytowns.

Question:
Can slums be ghetto as well or vice versa?

Body Scan :: Place Scan

The walls are cold
The floor is cold, and coldness is somehow hinted by its shade of cool grey.

Wind is blowing. Large white clouds are drifting quickly across the sky.
The willows are bending down into the water,
Their yellow, fragile braches pouring over the restless surface of the pond.

Cars are zooming, wind is blowing;
Yet I could not hear any of these sounds,
Because I can only hear people's talking.

The air is cold, but not fresh.

The heater is keeping my thighs warm.
My body is still cold.
The window is icy.

My mind is fussy, yet my body is refreshed.
I don't know if I am happy about that.

Motivation letter

This is from which everything began...