08.02.13 | day 12 building community ii
Today we decamped from the British Council and headed to Zorba in South Delhi to take part in the UnBox Festival. Nirali Ganatra, an undergrad at the College of Architecture in Baroda, has written an account of the day.
Flying speed of time can never be measured and same happened with the people engaged in the Building Community workshop. Today was the last day of the workshop and ended with participating in UNBOX festival. The journey of two weeks and the journey ahead at Hariharpur had to be fit in just few hours of doing by engaging workshop at UNBOX..which was a challenging task!
We split into groups of two and engaged participants in various technologies and activities..Board and Card game by Tyler and Kritika…Mud and Mud bricks by Vishank and Peter…Bamboo joints by Jaykishan and Divya..and weaving by Me and Di. We started the workshop at UNBOX by breathtaking music performances by musicians of Hariharpur Village. We were even lucky to have Potters from the village of Nizamabad to teach us pottery!!!!
This was the first time when we got to interact with the village people..Got to know about their culture..their traditions..about their music..their customs..their means of livelihood..their requirements..their livelihood..
The participants at UNBOX were very enthusiastic and we got lot of useful inputs from them which will help us build a better space for the community..They helped interacting with the village people..knowing their needs..their requirements..their inputs for the school..
Various inputs we got were like…a lot of ground work required before starting of design…interacting with more voices of the village..thinking about the future empowering of the people engaging in building of school..lots of boxes for the board game at the village to help villagers put their needs on board more freely..house typology(pukka or kuccha) as a status symbol..various activities practiced by different communities within the community..laying of sample bricks as a first task after reaching at the village..moving forward slowly with the community instead of hurrying to the final products.
It was a good end for a two weeks journey and a very resourceful start for a far more longer and challenging journey ahead at Hariharpur!
- jaykishan & divya interacting with an unbox attendee at the bamboo joint ‘making station’
- tyler & kritika taking an unbox participant through the participatory board game
- di & nirali teaching unbox participants weaving methods
- making bamboo joints
- the unbox film crew documenting the workshop
- a potter from nizamabad showing clem how its done
- clem having a go on the wheel
- hariharpur musicians interacting with the visiting school participants through the board game
- the musicians sketching ideas
- one of the unbox participants throwing a pot
- the conversation heats up over the board game
- the musicians talking about their ideas for the project
- unbox mud bricks!
- the musicians showing us their method for making mud bricks
- ellie from the british council having a go with the weaving
- ivar on the potting wheel
- the second evening performance from the musicians
- a round-up discussion at the end of the workshop