Two days to understand our city

Do Din returns to address specific issues and hopes people will contribute ideas to make Hyderabad better

December 17, 2014 07:45 pm | Updated 07:45 pm IST - HYDERABAD

A MATTER OF SPACE: Do Din will have a session on women, how they navigate the city and relate to recreational spaces. Photo: Nagara Gopal

A MATTER OF SPACE: Do Din will have a session on women, how they navigate the city and relate to recreational spaces. Photo: Nagara Gopal

What constitutes the city we live in? What do we mean by urbanisation? What does it mean for eight million people to inhabit the space we call a city? The Hyderabad Urban Lab (HUL) attempts to address multiple issues related to the city through a two-day event, Do Din. Do Din 2013 was a community driven techno-arts event, which saw workshops, discussions, photography, art and performances, all focused on living in the city.

This year, Do Din aims to get into specifics, bringing together architects, students, planners, entrepreneurs, artists and anyone with a social bent of mind to focus on areas as varied as space, gender, housing and economy.

“We talk of rapid urbanisation but we don’t know what it means, what sensibilities it requires, and what it means for eight million people to live together,” says Anant Maringanti, director of HUL, and one of the organisers.

The HUL team has been collecting data on various aspects of the city and mapping them to put things in perspective. For instance, a map at the HUL office marks all the dustbins in Hyderabad, the three waste transit stations and the landfill at Jawahar Nagar.

A similar audit conducted on public toilets in summer showed the dearth of public toilets, their concentration in certain localities, accessibility and hygiene. A city where millions of men and women navigate every day, without adequate access to hygienic washrooms, HUL points out, can have long-standing health repercussions.

Do Din aims to draw together people interested in working with data — numbers, latitudes and longitudes. Non-profit organisations, entrepreneurs interested in pursuing ideas for start-ups, students and architects have been sounded out. HUL underlines that Do Din will not talk in academic language, alienating the common citizen. The workshops are tailored to encourage people to contribute ideas to make our living spaces better.

Data Expedition

On December 19, preceding Do Din, a workshop on Data Expedition will be held in partnership with The School of Data, Bangalore. “A lot about our everyday life can be made sense of using data. Last summer’s audit of public toilets and mapping the data provided insights into the funding structure — how stakeholders fund a toilet and use the wall for advertising,” Anant points out.

The possibilities of research are endless. A survey helps to understand how groups of labourers wait each morning to be picked up to their place of daily labour. Do these people have designated waiting areas with shelters? How many such spots exist in the city? Studies could also be carried out with respect to the homeless in the city or the concentration on government schools in the city.

Space for women

A workshop ‘A Place for Her’, anchored by architect Srinivasa Murthy, will throw light on how women relate to their homes, neighbourhoods and the city. The idea for this workshop, says Anant, stemmed from a research conducted on young people and the explosion of movement due to work or social bonding. Women (mothers, students and workers) confessed they had their hands full, from the wee hours of morning till night. Those who stayed at home felt they often couldn’t relate to their own alienating neighbourhoods. The workshop will encourage young women to think of a social/recreational space, as an idea or a prototype, in their neighbourhood.

Sounds of the city

Apart from understanding the city through the visual medium, Do Din asks if we are listening to the city. The idea came from documentary filmmaker Lajwanti Waghray, now working on a film Searching for Sparrows , who conducted a few experiments on sounds of the city. The session will present Hyderabad through sound bytes of neighbourhoods, ranging from natural sounds, industrial sounds, a public rally, laughter clubs and more.

As the HUL team, which includes Harsha Devulapalli, Indivar Jonnalagadda, Bhashwathi and Neha Vaddadi among others, along with Ashhar Farhan brings together data collected over the months, Anant says, “Do Din is intended to be a harvest of ideas, which could be followed up both by government and smaller organisations.”

What to expect

Workshop on Data Expedition on December 19; 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., at Hyderabad Institute for Liberal Arts.

December 20 and 21

A plenary session on right to housing.

A round table on working women in the city.

A session on informal economies.

City presentations — from Hyderabad, Mumbai, Kolkata, New Delhi and Singapore, comparing living spaces in different cities.

‘A place for her’, workshop on women and public spaces by architect Srinivasa Murthy.

Design workshop with Arvind Lodaya and Rajib Ghosh.

A session on urban farming by Madhu Reddy.

Architect Neha Vaddadi will present a visual narrative of everyday life in the city.

The city and its recreational spaces, a photo exhibition curated by Aditya Mopur and Harsha Vadlamani. “The exhibition will also showcase images that explore the city’s biodiversity, highlighting lesser known species,” says Aditya.

Art installations ‘City Address’, curated by Avani Rao Gandra

Four artists will present installations at Vidyaranya High School:

1. Food On My Plate by Avani Rao Gandra

2. Green Bangles by Nirmala Biluka

3. Time lapse in urban life by Pavan Kumar D

4. City and its sounds by Ravi Kumar

For further details, check http://2014.do-din.org/

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