Meeta Jain

Meeta Jain is an architect and designer based in Bangalore. She is the founder of Mapbee, a collaborative interdisciplinary practice that facilitates making of mobile structures and spaces addressing diverse needs and purposes, through use of relevant design and technology. She believes that through arts education one can connect and engage with the living culture of a place.

With this in mind, Meeta has identified the Government Primary School at Sulthanpet village, Devanahalli, Chikkaballapura for her project. Dotted by a prominent banyan tree grove with a naga katte, the sacred space for the worship of snakes, right opposite a defunct temple well, Meeta feels this is an ideal place to re-engage with and archive lost traditions, rituals and the culture of the neighbourhood.    

Meeta will observe the school as a platform for the members of the community to celebrate and transform the ‘local’. She will also explore how the school can be a space for re-engaging the community with its local traditions through various tasks and activities. The project will encourage students to map houses, the school, and the settlement around it in ‘sand boxes’ using stones, pebbles and other found materials. Plays reflecting lost traditions and local stories will be created and documented by the children and the community. The final outcome of the project will be an exhibition at the school. 

This grant was made possible with support from Goethe Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, Bangalore and Citi India.