In need of public space

BANGALORE: The Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, in collaboration with CoLab Art & Architecture, is presenting yet another discussion on May 31 as part of the ‘Practices in Contemporary Art and Architecture Lecture Series’.Eminent architects and public figures will participate in the panel discussion titled ‘Reclaiming Public Space for People’. The panelists include architects Naresh Narasimhan, Soumitra Ghosh and Dominic Dube, and actress-theatre director Arundhati Nag. The event will be moderated by Edgar Demello, co-curator, CoLab Art & Architecture.About the lectureDespite the rhetoric to the contrary, public space, as an equitable and democratic form, has been shrinking in our city. Who are the arbiters of this most essential commodity in our public life? And what is, in our context the real meaning of ‘public space’, in its more contemporary manifestation? How do we, as citizens, participate in the process of bringing new ideas to a stale status quo? That allows us the freedom to choose between leisure and doing, between reflection and rushing. What we need is not only imaginative thinking, but affirmative action.But finally it is both, the large ideas, imagined at the ‘top’, as well as the small initiatives, that will transform our city.The panelistsArchitect Naresh Narasimhan is responsible for the regeneration of the NGMA - the brief included restoring the heritage building, gallery additions and conserving the natural habitat.Soumitra Ghosh, an architect, transformed the Central Jail into the Freedom Park, perhaps one of the only large planned open places for people in the recent past.Dominic Dube is an architect and agent provocateur on matters urban whose projects range from houses in Auroville to urban design competitions for international cities.Arundhati Nag is an actress and theatre director, who with Ranga Shankara, has transformed a part of JP Nagar into a cultural threshold for its inhabitants and for the city.The lecture seriesThe Practicesin Contemporary Art & Architecture Lecture Series is spread over a year with one lecture a month, the visual art series focuses on practitioners who look at both ‘reconstruction’ and the ‘historical turn’ from the perspective of contemporary artistic practice: the revisions and re-readings that take place when images, works or events from the past circulate in a changing set of configurations; the lectures on architecture attempt to look at the radical shift in the imagining of the public space and the notion of spatial equity, and the questions thus raised.The panel discussion will be held on May 31, 6.30 pm at Max Mueller Bhavan, CMH Road.For details call 080 25205305/6/7/8 or visit www.goethe.de/bangalore.