Project Dharavi

Photo by Sudharak Olwe

About this Project

In order to record this period of extraordinary change, we as a group of photographers and writers, will be visiting, photographing and documenting Dharavi everyday over a period of 12 months.This unique approach will capture the change as it occurs; and in the process, we will create a documentary of a changing society.

Dharavi has been written about, photographed and represented on celluloid often but all these images represent its existence in only one moment of time. By consistently recording the structures, scenes, activity and residents, we hope to capture a sense of Dharavi’s human aspiration and endeavour; to mark what will be lost and to document what will emerge

About Dharavi

Sprawled across the centre of Mumbai, India, Dharavi is a slum, a community, an industrial centre and the site of one of the greatest redevelopment programmes in the world. Home to approximately a million people, and the workplace of many more, Dharavi is one of India’s largest industrial hubs of recycling and leather goods, with an economy worth nearly $700 million before last year’s downturn. With 60 neighbourhoods within a 550 acre area, Dharavi is a city within a megopolis; with its own pattern of building, economic activity, labour markets and community. Dharavi's innumerable shops, and factories support not just the migrant labourers they employ, but also their families, who wait in far flung villages for the monthly allowances sent to them. As a result, it is a site of great interest for students of urban planning and design all over the world.

And now, the familiar face of Dharavi is poised to change beyond recognition. The Dharavi Redevelopment Plan, worth Rs15,000 crore (approximately $3 billion) will completely redevelop each of the area’s five sectors.

The Dharavi of our popular imagination will be razed and new structures will emerge in the same space: residential high rises, designated commercial units, civic amenities and new utilities. But residents are apprehensive, and with reason: the DRP will change not just the way Dharavi looks, but also how Dharavi functions. For better or worse, change is coming to Dharavi and nothing will ever be the same.

Project Dharavi

Friday, March 26, 2010

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