Animations

Across the world slums are labeled as unclean, disorderly places and seen as a problem for planning smart cities of the future. This animation tells the story of Krishnanagar, labelled as the largest slum in the Shimla district in India to suggest that we need to rethink smart cities from below. This is possible only through an appreciation of the slum as a historic and cultural heritage of the city, delinking it from claims of informality or illegality. This would provide mode inclusive snd sustainable pathways for planning for the future city.

Animation Direction: Sabari Venu

Urban rivers provide water for drinking, sanitation, agriculture and industry and more. They are also deeply engrained in the cultures of communities living near them, and produce urban mythologies, identities, and notions of shared heritage. What happens when these rivers are seen as commodities to be redeveloped for imagined smart urban futures?

This is a story of Goda Ghat, a temple complex built in the late eighteenth century on the banks of the Godavari river in Nashik. It highlights how ordinary communities can work together to compel the urban municipality to address historical decisions that had devastated river ecologies and cultures for decades.

Animator: Sabari Venu

Speed has become a mantra of urban development that demands the fast movement of labour and capital to generate urban prosperity. This is ingrained in the imagination of the smart city where people, information and infrastructure can be efficiently managed, never slowing or stopping. But in this city of speed, what happens to pedestrians, vendors, hawkers, and those who make a living off busy streets? What is lost in the need for speed?