Archana Prasad

Archana Prasad is a Bangalore-based visual artist and founder-director of a creative space called Jaaga. As part of Jaaga, she has been working on several public art projects in Bangalore. Currently, Jaaga has been creatively engaging with spaces under the city’s flyovers. With permission from the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), Jaaga has created several art projects under the flyover in Shantinagar. As part of Project 560, Archana seeks to work in the space beneath the Yeshwantpur flyover. This is a relatively new flyover and is strategically located on the fringes of Malleswaram. Archana herself grew up and continues to live in Malleswaram and has fond memories of it. In the last few years, this old Bangalore locality has continued to undergo rapid transformation, even as its residents are still grappling to come to terms with it.

This project is an attempt to pause and reflect on the fast fading memories of Malleswaram and its meaning in a transformed ecology. Archana plans to set up an old-fashioned telephone booth under the flyover. As people walk into it and pick up the receiver, they would be able to hear a range of stories about Malleswaram recounted by its inhabitants. The technology for this is enabled by Exotel, a cloud telephony service provider. Every few days, the stories on the phone will be replaced with new ones. For these stories, Archana will conduct interviews with a vast spectrum of people residing in Malleswaram. 

This grant is part of Project 560, 2015, which was made possible with support from Citi India.