Make/Break is a digital exhibition on the ongoing socio-spatial transformation of Bombay, looking at 4 specific areas. It’s well worth engaging with.

The exhibition presents hidden stories from Mumbai about the way in which (re)development plans and projects of different state and private actors have broken the homes and lives of poor, marginalised communities. Yet, these communities are remaking the city democratically and creatively, while resisting the violence they face.

Quotes from one of the areas:

PLACE
A particular space or location.
But also a valued ecosystem of practices, relationships, resources and meanings.

MAIM
To disable, mutilate, remove a limb from a living body.

What does a road do? It links places, of course. But it can also split places. So, what is a place? A ‘concretion of value,’ says the geographer Yi-Fu Tuan. This is the story of how people made an informal place called Pratap Nagar in the face of poverty, neglect and marginalisation. Like a nurturing ecosystem it helped consolidate and shape precarious lives. Jogeshwari Vikhroli Link Road (JVLR) disrupted the nearly ‘organic’ integrity of this place and its value as a foundation of everyday life – homes were demolished, amenities erased, and families moved.

Online Exhibition