7 Isles Unclaimed workshop at Cities Methodologies 2014

As part of the programme for Cities Methodologies 2014, join us for a workshop discussing '7 Isles Unclaimed' - a research project imagining alternative pasts for the city of Mumbai.

'7 Isles Unclaimed' imagines an image repository of speculative fiction regarding the reclamation (or lack thereof) of land masses for the city of Mumbai (then Bombay). Bombay was composed of 7 islands that underwent a series of reclamations forming a peninsula. There follows a trajectory of flash-points in the timeline of the city when specific incidents triggered the reclamation of land. This project conjectures the condition of the city if those specific flash-points in the timeline leading to reclamation were never realised, leaving the space between the islands 'unclaimed'.

The aim of the workshop will be to investigate how histories are recorded and how they can be altered by the removal/ addition of events that were critical in the development of a city (in this case Bombay). Stories from factual data, accounts, fictionalised events will be rearranged thus offering alternate timelines.

The workshop will take the form of a group discussion. Dr. Amit Rai (Queen Mary, University of London) will converse with the creators of '7 Isles Unclaimed', Vinita Gatne and Ranjit Kandalgaonkar. Dr Rai teaches Media studies at the School of Business & Management (SBM) at QMUL and is also a Fulbright scholar whose research subjects range from Bollywood to city-based media technologies and their interaction within the Indian subcontinent. Vinita Gatne is an architect based in Mumbai. Her interests lie in the act of 'the making : the operation : the repair' and is currently pursuing it through carpentry and metal works. Ranjit Kandalgaonkar is a visual artist based in Mumbai. His city-based practice aims to highlight anomalies in an unraveling urban environment and questions notions of historicity in research by stressing the importance of oral history mapping.

The event is free, but places are limited. Please register for a space via Eventbrite.