Format : Interactive virtual workshop for children aged 6-12 years
Facilitator : Sherline Pimenta
“If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water,” wrote the anthropologist Loren Eisely. Our ancestors the world over acknowledged the fact that water is the elixir of life and held it sacred. There are many rituals practised by the people of Mumbai that signify the special place given to water. Today due to easy access to potable water (for many but not all people) we have come to take it for granted. It is time each one of us relooks at this magical element in a new light. Through storytelling and art, the workshop seeks to introduce the children to these forgotten rituals that mark water as sacred with a focus on wells in Mumbai.
This workshop is part of The Water We Want global competition launched by the Global Network of Water Museums inviting all children and youth between 6 to 18 years to share their thoughts, images, music and art reflecting the water they want to sustain their world.
To explain to children that water is a precious magical element of life and each one
of us is a custodian of it. The focus of the workshop will be on the following aspects-
1. Where does the water we need come from? How does it reach us?
2. How much water do I need to survive?
Paper, pencils, colours.
Format :Virtual panel discussion
Speakers : Moderator: Sara Ahmed (Founder, Living Waters Museum), Madhu Kelkar (Associate Professor, HR College of Commerce, Asiatic Society, Mumbai), Nupur Prothi Khanna (Founder, www.beyondbuilt.in, Board Member, ICOMOS), Phillipe Pypaert (Programme Specialist for Natural Sciences, UNESCO, Beijing) Eddy Moors (Rector, UNESCO-IHE, Delft, President, Global Network of Water Museums) Sukrit Sen (Opening Music, Living Waters Museum, Kolkata)
The opening event for Confluence will provide a brief overview of the making of our virtual exhibition and its relevance to our multidimensional understanding of water from heritage to policy, education and practice. It will include short presentations from the speakers on the history of Mumbai’s water systems (Madhu Kelkar), the relevance of water museums in communicating our water heritage (Eddy Moors), engaging youth in water conservation through the arts (Phillipe Pypaert) and facilitating collaborative partnerships in water education for a new water ethics (Nupur Prothi Khanna)
Format : Guided Virtual Walk
Speakers : Rahul Chemburkar (Founder, Vaastu Vidhaan) and Ritu Deshmukh ( Conservation Architect, Founder of Creahdle)
A guided walk through the ‘ Once upon a Pyaav’ and ‘The Untold Stories of Navi Mumbai’ exhibits, as a part of the Water and Built Heritage gallery of Confluence.
Format : Guided Virtual Walk
Speakers : Minaz Ansari (Architect, Urban Designer, Faculty at Rizvi College of Architecture, Founder of Dreamer’s Collective), Jinisha Lodaya (Architect, Urban Designer, Faculty at Rizvi College of Architecture, Founder of Dreamer’s Collective), Berjis Driver (Architect, Urban Planner)
A guided walk through the ‘ Water and Faith’ and ‘Water and Communities’ exhibits, as a part of the Water and Culture gallery of Confluence.
Format : Guided Virtual Walk
Speakers : Ajay Nayak ( CEO, Ed-En Educated Environments), Kimaya Keluskar (Ed- En EducatedEnvironments, Water Environs, Faculty at KRVIA), Vikram Pawar (SAHEC, Water Environs, Faculty at KRVIA)
A guided walk through the ‘ Afloat’ exhibit, as a part of the Water and Livelihoods gallery of Confluence.
Format : Guided Virtual Walk
Speakers : Abhishek Jamalabad (Marine Life of Mumbai, Coastal Conservation Fund) Sarang Naik (Marine Life of Mumbai)
A guided walk through the ‘What comes to mind when you think about Mumbai’s Coastline?’ exhibit, as a part of the Saline Waters gallery of Confluence.
Format : Panel discussion with a 24 hour film screening of ‘A Can of Fish’ and ‘High Power’ on the exhibition site.
Speakers : Ajay Nayak (CEO - Educated Environments,Water Environs) in conversation with Parag Tandel (Artist, Tandel Fund of Archives), Pradeep Indulkar (Filmmaker), and Aditi Chitre (Independent Filmmaker). ‘High Power’ and ‘A can of fish’ will be screened on the exhibition site for 24 hours on 25th March. It is recommended that all participants watch the films prior to panel discussion.
When will it really hurt? The sea waters are calming psychologically and physiologically…until we enter it with a cut or scratch which exposes us to the raw pain of reaction to the salinity.
For generations there seemed a psychological and physiological balance of relationships between communities on the coast and the ecosystems they inhabited. Their livelihoods and ways of life, be it for fishing, cottage industries, salt production and more were a symbiotic evolution. This panel explores the fragility of our coastal environs through conversations with two film-makers and an artist from Mumbai’s fishing community.
In “A Can of Fish”, an animation film, Aditi Chitre captures the simple agitative response of a fishing community to large scale commercial trawling. While in “High Power” Pradeep Indulkar, uses film to capture two sensitive narratives of disturbance in saline waters due to the development of a nuclear power plant whose ripples affect generations. …be it sterile couples yearning to be a family, fisher folk who have turned into vendors, orchard keepers who witness their trees becoming stunted with infected offerings. These become the catalyst for a dialogue on how we are shaping the narrative of our cities and its citizens. Do these micro cultures have a voice in the evolution of megalopolises?
As there is a native Indian saying …what will you eat when the last tree has been cut or as Aditi might ask ..”when the last fish has been eaten?”
Meanwhile, through the Tandel Fund of Archives, Parag Tandel, an artist has been capturing the lives of the Koli community through drawings, photographs, sculpture and more recently, recipes for dry seafood passed down through the generations.
The conversation will be moderated by Architect- Ecologist Ajay Nayak
When will it really hurt? The sea waters are calming psychologically and physiologically…until we enter it with a cut or scratch which exposes us to the raw pain of reaction to the salinity.
Format : Panel discussion with film screening
Speakers : With the filmmaking teams from Agaaz and Akansha, Shaina Anand (Studio CAMP, Pad.Ma), Nikhil Anand (Associate Professor for Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania), Sitaram Shelar (Founder, Pani Haq Samiti and Director, Centre for Promoting Democracy), and others
PaNi SaRe DhaGa Ma (Water Is In All The Clouds) as the sargam notes and title connote was an exploration of the many lives of water - social, political, material, and spectral - as lived and experienced by young dwellers of the Mumbai suburbs of east Jogeshwari in 2008. In a collaboration unique for its time, members of two local youth groups, Agaaz and Aakansha, met with the artist group CAMP, and anthropologist Nikhil Anand over several Sundays, exchanging footage with each other and collectively reading and writing over the video material. This filmic and pedagogic relay resulted in Ek Dozen Pani, (One Dozen Waters), a collection of 12 shorts that are still refreshing, carrying within them astute and analytical observations, intimate and poetic images, and multi-modal commentary on the dimensionalities of water, its capture and release, and its past, present, and futures. Join us for a special throwback evening as we journey back with the films in the presence of, and in conversation with many of the filmmaker’s actors accompanied by bonus archival material.
Format : Guided Virtual Walk
Speakers : Abhijit Ekbote (Secretary MMR-EIS, Former MMR HCS, Faculty at Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Environment and Architecture and School of Environment and Architecture)
A guided walk through the ‘Covid and Access to Water’ exhibit, as a part of the Water and Public Health gallery of Confluence.
Format : Curatorial walk and panel discussion n
Speakers : Mridula Ramanna (Former Head, Department of History, SIES College, Mumbai) Basia Irland (Professor Emeritus, New Mexico University, Artist)
Moderator : Sara Ahmed (Founder, Living Waters Museum)
Up to 60 percent of the human adult body is water. While we are each responsible for managing our own health, the Covid-19 pandemic showed us how much our health depends not only on our shared environments, both public and private spaces, but equally on our behaviour protecting ourselves and others by masking, maintaining physical distance and so on. In the absence of adequate public health infrastructure the role of the state in ensuring that behavioural protocols are followed becomes critical. In this conversation, Professor Mridula Ramanna explores facets of Mumbai’s public health during the colonial period, looking at the role of the state and civil society in responding to the plague and the Spanish Flu.
While frequent handwashing or sanitising was part of the Covid safety protocols millions of people in Mumbai do not have access to safe water, and we do not know what the long-term impacts of chemical sanitisers are on our water systems. In her work as an artist, Basia Irland was drawn to explore waterborne diseases when she herself suffered from Giardia in Indonesia.
The silk scrolls that she developed ask us to look at the relationship between our bodies and the environment we share, as responsible citizens with the agency to shape a more sustainable, equitable and healthy future.
Mumbai’s history has been fraught with epidemics and outbreaks, several of which can be linked to water scarcity and contamination. In the wake of the Covid 19 pandemic, how can these historical insights on the relationship between the state, body and infrastructure address our current healthcare mechanisms?
