OPA|CITY GENDER. SPACE. INTERSECTIONS By Vani Subramanian
DISCLAIMER: PLEASE NOTE THAT THE DATES FOR THE EXHIBITION AND WORKSHOP HAVE CHANGED.

Installation Opening:
Tuesday, 22 April 2014, 19:00
Siddhartha Hall, Goethe-Institut /
Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi
Exhibition Opening: Participants’ Installation:
Sunday, 4 May 2014
Exhibition Continues:
Monday, 5- Wednesday, 7 May 2014
10:00-18:00 daily

The Installation: Built environments. Are they defined by the walls that confine them, or the square feet they cover? Are they just a function of purpose and facility, or mere territories to be owned/contested? Or are they in fact, complex, embodied experiences for all who inhabit them? Women, men, trans persons, children, the aged, the poor, the disabled and the Dalits often seem to occupy different versions of the same spaces, be they private or public, spaces of work or leisure, of permanence or those occupied in the passing. Because all spatial arrangements reflect and reinforce social inequalities. Yet conversely, the ways in which we inhabit, use, negotiate or even appropriate these spaces has the potential to redefine, and even transform, them.

The installation and workshop, OPA|CITY. Gender. Space. Intersections foregrounds how the category of gender shapes, and is in turn, shaped by the city ̶ its physical organization, its temporal transformations, its inscriptions of sexuality, its implicit codifications ̶ all of which must be interrogated from our viewpoint of creators, consumers and critics of built spaces. Urban design must be sensitive to the subtle yet significant ways in which the city presents itself to a gendered subjectivity. The concern of planners should not merely be about creating safer cities, but rather about the equality of space. We need to step back from narratives of risk and safety, and move towards a nuanced understanding of how gender influences our being in the city, and what it means for our imagination of just, equitable and inclusive cities.

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
The Workshop: While the installation will be open to the public till 7 May, 2014, the workshop will be held on the two consecutive weekends of 26-27 March, and 3-4 May. Using theory, literature, film, site visits, as well as the diverse experiences of participants as to critique and understand the gendered nature of built environments, the workshop aims to create awareness, interest and generate ideas that work towards urban transformation and the creation of inclusive and equitable cities.

Workshop Session Details:
26./27.04. 2014 Workshop sessions on gender, urban space and the built
environment. Participants will use the following week to
develop a creative piece of their own writing / video /
sound / art that responds to the show OPA|CITY.
29.04.2014 Mid-week review to discuss the progress of participants’ art works.
03./04.05.2014 The participants’ installations are mounted and critiqued.
04.–07.05.2014 Exhibition of the participants’ installations is opened to the public

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One-time advertising writer, Vani Subramanian has been a women’s rights activist and documentary filmmaker since the 1990s. Her work explores the connections between everyday practices and larger political questions, be they in the areas of culture, food production, primary education, urban development, communalism, sex selective abortions, or even matters of identity embedded in our food practices. More recently, Vani has extended her practice to video art in performance, as well as a mixed media installation.
To apply for the workshop please send a brief biography and note on your general area of interest to: Mail opacity2014@gmail.com