Rooftop art

Artists are going outside gallery walls to give new life to their work. Like Mumbai-based Samir Parker who has elevated urban art to a whole new level with his latest project, Roof/Tarp/City. "The project takes a highly visible, yet neglected part of the city's topography and transforms it through colour as the city prepares for the monsoon. The idea is to create a series of urban interventions visible from the air and satellite," says Samir, who has designed installations, exhibitions and publications for Bodhi Art, the London School of Economics, UNICEF and the Venice Biennale.

Samir wanted to use PVC Flex prints to create artwork across the rooftops of Mumbai's irregular settlements through his project, initially named Re-Flexing the City. His search for an ideal site for the installation -- defined by prerequisites like size of the area, access, visibility and community participation -- ended at Murugan Chawl in Khar, Mumbai.

But were the residents open to art on their roof? "For those who dwell in these irregular settlements, any outside interference is viewed with suspicion," he says. "I was fortunate to have found partners in Raja and Reshma Keshavan, who handled all the coordination and logistics, including records and accounts of material and labour."

Murugan Chawl is a cluster of 168 households, which has existed as a settlement for over 50 years. Originally the site of a graveyard and an illicit liquor operation, the community has been negotiating resettlement for the last 20 years. At present, it is surrounded by mid and high-rise apartments, which cost millions of dollars. "Blue tarpaulin or taar patri is usually used in irregular settlements as a protective shield during the monsoon. My idea was to use various colours available to create a large urban graphic," explains Samir.

Over the two weeks of surveying and installation, various teenage boys were formally involved. Eventually, Samir received help and support from almost all the teenagers of the area. "The community participation worked at every level; from spreading the word about the project, to employing maximum number of youth. It was completely managed and run by the residents, with about 15 teenagers formally involved. Using tarpaulin opened up a whole new approach to the act of image making as well. I had always intended for the image to emerge from some consensus of the participants. Our palette of colours was chosen for their brightness and contrast. Each rooftop became a single block of colour or pixel," he elaborates.

They worked in teams and conducted daily reviews, before moving to the next stage. "The abstract nature of the composition made various participants see it differently. We would discuss their views and the final graphic decisions were made on site in real time," he adds.

For Samir, the defining moment of this project was when the boys came up with concepts for the graphic forms and compositions. "There was a sense of locational pride that the satellite would now recognise their home," he says.

While the installation was completed by April 30 this year, Samir continues to document the engagement with the participants, the response of the chawl inhabitants and the reactions from the buildings around.

He believes urban art projects that involve communities can be empowering, they can subvert the exclusive mediocrities sold by the state and real estate developers. "The idea of an intervention of this scale is to make the city notice its own uniqueness. The urban landscape is in a constant state of change. For an artist, the inspiration is in the transient colours, textures, patterns and networks that are of this time and space. To draw from what exists in order to create interventions of fleeting irony or contrariness to the everyday notions of urban development or human endeavour."

Samir's next intervention is at a site near Bandra Reclamation. "But the windy conditions and an unrelated fire have hampered progress. This is a part of the learning process," he says.