Skip to main content

Moothram/Urine (Street play/social experiment)

It is always our aim to engage in meaningful dialogue with people around us. Urine is an inevitable part of our urban landscape. Moothram/Urine, was a social experiment to understand Urine as a cultural phenomena in our urban landscape. The performance was structured in two parts: 1. An introductory role play that tried to instigate the audience to question our perceptions of urine, urination and urinals. Many people from different walks of life shared their experiences and their ideas of what we lack, who we are and why we do what we do. 2. The prop (A yellow urinal) that was used in the role play, was left in the street to understand how people relate with it. The natural familiarity with the object could gather meanings, from being a mere object to a functional space to an artistic exploration. We leave it to the public to reflect on the object. To begin with, we have installed this on Manaveeyam Road. Although Manaveeyam Road is an important cultural corridor in Trivandrum, there is a specific spot in this street where men urinate. Moreover, being a space that attracts crowd during several events that are held, this space lacks a urinal, which is a basic necessity for humans to attend nature’s call. We hope to travel with this performance and continue our social experiment in some of the ‘important’ derelict spaces in the city. We hope these small attempts of dialogue can bring about a shift in our 'urine culture'.
Title: Moothram/ Urine
5 pm to 7 pm, 17 November 2017
Manaveeyam Veedhi, Trivandrum
6pm to 7 30 pm, 19 November 2017
Poojappura ground, Trivandrum
Performed by: Dr. Soumini Raja, ,Ar. Gautham Padmanabhan, Ar. Akshaisankar, Ar. Visakh Sashidharan, Ar. Sheen George and people who were present at the spot
Props: Ar. Vishnu K, Dhanesh Kumar
Graphics: Ar. Akshaisankar
Our sincere thanks to : Sam George, our friend and theatre artist for his invaluable support, Dinu, Sruthy, Asok, Anandhu, Geeth and members of Manaveeyam Veedhi. Ar. Ganga Dileep, Ar. Geethanjali and Recyclebin for giving us an opportunity to present it on World Toilet day.









Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Home as a Grove - Jayan's Abode

  Jayan's Abode began as an exploration of incremental nature of building a house, through the nature of growth of a family into a community. The act of building here is like the act of growing a grove: a meticulous controlled planting yet leaving room for the tree to communicate and grow in its own direction, thus forming a grove - a community of trees offering solace to organisms of all kinds. This Indo-Portuguese family envisages to build one such grove for their four member family to host their guests who travel annually to this abode for ayurvedic rejuvenation and yoga camp. The seed design is a residential unit that can house the four member family. The house invites guests every evening for shared dinner, thus offering an active kitchen yard and a sacred grove adjacent to the bedroom block. The private bedroom block and the public kitchen are connected by living space for select guests to engage with the family. In the later phases, the residence is integrated with the other...
2 comments
Read more

Who is a house?** - An exercise through conversations

Sometimes we ask the wrong questions, most often we never question. In the process of creating a product, we forget to ask who the object is or will be or what happens in the life of an object? As architects we often forget to ask: Who is a house? Who are the people who meet the house? What conversations take place? What culture is born? At a time when even the minutest of an artifact and its position in the house is dictated by the architect whose hegemony imposes a kind of aesthetics on the society, the transition from a house to a home takes multiple encounters between the object, the people and the environment. Every encounter adds a new layer of meaning through constant conversation, adding to newer narratives - multiple formations of a new house; a new HOME.  A house is never static, the textures, the paint, the objects, every spec of dust particles, movement of the people etc. constantly alter the very essence of its sole existence. For an architect, designing a house...
Post a Comment
Read more