Bhavin Shukla

Bhavin Shukla is an architect and academic from Ahmedabad with a keen interest in humanities, architectural research and anthropology. His undergraduate research dissertation focused on examining the interrelationship of architectural heritage and intangible culture in historic settlements looking at the basti of Nizamuddin in Delhi as a case study.

Bhavin sees this fellowship as an opportunity to find a middle ground between the two dominant discourses of architecture and anthropology. While architecture has always focused on built structure and monumentality; and anthropology on the relationship between material culture and people - Bhavin, in this project would like to explore the role that the built environment has had on shaping peoples’ lives. He will work towards curating a physical exhibition ‘Delhi Dialogues’ that will explore the relationship between people and the built environment in the city of Delhi. Using the language of space, Bhavin will construct three different kinds of narratives from the archive – ‘Space is social in nature’; ‘Space is gendered’ and ‘Space is represented’. The first narrative will focus on how people use space for socialising; the second, the link between gender and space use, and the third will examine how a certain ‘image’ or representation of a built environment can transform one’s relationship with it. Bhavin will also use public programming as an extended means of developing the dialogue and some of the programmes he has in mind include an online dialogue/ web presence; workshops that will give unheard voices an opportunity to emerge; city walks; speculative storytelling, guest lectures, field trips and photo walks.

The outcomes will include a physical exhibition that will tour two cities; a series of events like lectures, discussions, workshops and city walks that he is proposing both around and beyond the exhibition. The Fellow’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be process images, audio recordings, images from the exhibition, texts and publication, if any.

This fellowship is made possible with support from Tata Trusts.