Deco in Delhi: A Presentation by Geetanjali Sayal and Prashansa Sachdeva | Project Showcase@IFA | May 31, 2024

Delhi, an old city, constitutes multiple visual histories, the most prominent of which date back to Mughal and colonial times. Can we look at its history in an alternative way? Does modern heritage tell a different story about it? 

Join us for our next showcase on Deco in Delhi, a project that captures the journey of the Art Deco style in Delhi and relooks at the city’s history through its lens, going beyond the well-known historic monuments that the city has come to be recognised by. The project was also a crowdsourced endeavour, inviting the people of Delhi to notice the Art Deco elements around them. Featuring images of buildings, typefaces and posters, along with stories attached to each of them, it dives deep into the changing nature of this disappearing architectural style. 

This showcase will bring to light how the project was conceived, the processes it adapted especially during the pandemic, and details about collaborations with various domain experts. The project resulted in a website that hosts a map of different neighbourhoods with details of buildings in the Art Deco style, and hopes to build curiosity about one of the most beloved styles of the city’s modern heritage. Through a conversation with Anica Mann, the showcase will broaden the discussion on the notions of modern heritage in the present time by including Art Deco in its recognition and study.

Friday, May 31, 2024 | 06:30 PM IST onwards

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Geetanjali Sayal is an architect with a Masters in Narrative Environments from Central Saint Martins, London. Currently, her practice mostly lies in the realm of architectural research, designing tactile public experiences and more specifically around lesser known narratives of a city's modern heritage. Her project is also on Instagram as @decoindelhi

Prashansa Sachdeva is a practising Architect and Design Research graduate based in New Delhi. Her work focuses on the tangents of interculturality, informality, culture and heritage in the changing times. She likes to passionately pen down critical readings about arts, history and architecture. 

Anica Mann is a curator, archaeologist and art historian working with the Archaeological Survey of India. She has curated the Young Collector programme for two editions of the India Art Fair and documents mid-century houses through an Instagram project, @delhihouses

This session is organised as part of Project Showcase@IFA, a series of presentations to showcase, discuss and engage audiences with the diverse projects we support and implement across programmes.

Images: https://decoindelhi.com/

Geetanjali Sayal received a grant from India Foundation for the Arts, under the Arts Research programme. It is made possible with support from Tata Trusts, with the corpus interest of an earlier seed grant.