Vinita Gatne, Ranjit Kandalgoankar & Amit S.Rai are working collaborative on the project, Seven Isles Unclaimed.
This project is a collaboration with artists, print makers, architect and programmers- the project 'seven isles unclaimed' takes divergent forms of conveying the research. The first being stories accompanied by drawings, the second being diagrams which perform as contraptions/machines, and the third being a digital mapping exercise. The first part of the project are stories with illustrations, investigating how we perceive and process a historical narrative. The work questions the authenticity of historical account that are tempered by social and economic struggles. The (in)authentic narratives serve to blur the lines of what we understand as their representation. They create opportunity to look back into the past to relook pivotal points in the historical timeline of the city. These points are re-imagined in terms of important events that occur and a speculative study ensues.
The second part of diagrams in the form of contraptions and machines. These inserts address the in-between space of land and water where the tide decides the topography- the marshes, mud flats and mangroves. At low tide levels the seven isles have been known to join to become four isles. The contraptions aim to investigate how the space can adjusted in order for it to be occupied by both land and water. The diagram explains the working of the fiction- what it will do rather that what it will look like. How the diagram then can get actualised is dependent on the technology of the time.
https://vimeo.com/album/3496948
The third part is the maps. Through this exercise we attempted to investigate two things; firstly to make fictional maps to illustrate the possibilities of alternate reclamation of Bombay, and the second to investigate how Bombay was drawn before and after cartographic methods were employed.
This part of the study is in its infant stage as we project this digital tool to be in the capacity to express more of the study. Nonetheless, the programmers- Karen Menezes, Sajjad Anwar & Sanjay Bhangar, really developed this as a tool which helped us relook at methods of documentation.