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Mint
6 days ago
- General
- Mint
A new exhibition spotlights the impact of heat stress on informal workers
Madhe Gowda, a fruit vendor in Bengaluru's Whitefield area, noticed the rising heat in the city about four years ago. Working for more than12 hours a day, mostly under the scorching sun, means headaches and falling sick frequently. 'There isn't a way for us to avoid this heat," he says. Gowda is among the over 400 million informal workers in India's labour force who bear the brunt of heat stress every day. A new exhibition in Bengaluru, Sweat and Concrete 2025, explored how art can draw focus to the heat stress crisis. The exhibition was organized on 29-30 May by People First Cities, an initiative by social movement incubator Purpose. 'If you look at the narrative around heat stress right now, it's alarming. How do we shift this to a more solutions-focused narrative?" says Sonali Bhasin from People First Cities. At the heart of the exhibition was an interactive exhibit, The Neralu Heat Shelter, conceptualised by architects and urban planners Ankrtiya Diggavi and Sagar Kandal. The collapsible shelter was the winning entry in a heat-shelter design competition run by the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE). The microclimate shade features a recyclable metal frame, a tin canopy, a jute curtain that doubles as a hand-pulled fan, and built-in bench for seating. The idea was born out of Diggavi's urban studies in Ahmedabad and Kandal's research in Peenya, Bengaluru, where they documented how informal workers created makeshift shade using broken billboards, tarpaulins, and discarded umbrellas. At a time when rising heat and heatwaves are posing serious health and livelihood risks for informal workers, the architects aimed to design a solution based on informal worker's need and functional use of public spaces. 'We designed the shelter in such a way that it doesn't touch the ground or interfere with public space and folds up onto itself," says Diggavi. The chassis and frame set-up which includes a cycle wheel to move the jute curtain costs about ₹20,000. Scalability is a strong focus. Everything in blue is pre-made of recycled or fabricated metal which can be shipped to different locations. 'Depending on the region it's being shipped to, the canopy, the bench, and the front curtain can be replaced using local materials," Kandal explains. They are hoping to have a conversation with the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) about this shelter and how it can be taken forward. 'The larger idea is to force discourse on why we have to think about these solutions in the first place - our current urban designs and plans have all but failed to meet the requirements," Kandal explains. For informal workers visiting the exhibition, it was also a platform to discuss heat as a problem. 'We are often told to just adjust to the heat, never see it as a problem," says Gowda. Rising heat also impacts their physical and mental health. Bhagyamma H, a construction worker, describes how the rising temperatures take a toll on her body, especially when working with materials like cement. 'There's no shade nearby where we can just sit and rest," she says. 'We eat right next to the cement, which radiates heat. Even when we're menstruating and dealing with body aches, we have to keep going in the sun." Mangala, a field worker with the NGO Association for Promoting Social Action (APSA), speaks of the health effects she faces due to constant exposure. 'I get a lot of rashes and itching," she says. Reflecting on the Neralu Heat Shelter, Bhagyamma says spaces like these could offer vital respite. 'At least I can sit and eat my lunch in the shade," she says. I.S. Patil, community coordinator, APSA, emphasises the importance of having solutions-centric conversations and recognising the impact of heat on informal workers. 'Be it BBMP or local hospitals, they see heat only through the lens of health. If people are falling sick because of heat, it's seen as a health issue but not in relation to heat," he explains. The opening day also included a performative play by a theatre collective, Kahe Vidushak. From spotlighting how heat affects women workers in overcrowded factories where they can't drink water or use washrooms to silent struggles of construction workers who have to deal with unreasonable work timelines under the blazing sun, the play gave a glimpse the lived realities of vulnerable communities. On the second day, there was a panel discussion between informal workers with experts and practitioners of climate resilience on how to make city-level responses to heat stress inclusive and needs-oriented. 'This was an opportunity to bring all solutions providers together. We need solutions on-ground, and for that, the conversation must start on-ground," says Bhasin. Also read: 'Loal Kashmir' review: Stories of love and longing from Kashmir
The Hindu
29-05-2025
- General
- The Hindu
Heat shelter design for the city's vulnerable takes centre-stage in exhibition
A working prototype of 'Neralu heat shelter' — a roadside shelter designed keeping in mind outdoor workers — was unveiled at Sweat & Concrete 2025, an exhibition aimed to highlight the lived realities of communities most affected by the rising heat stress. The light, collapsible, and easily scalable shelter, conceptualised by architects and urban planners Ankrtiya Diggavi and Sagar Kandal, was the winning entry in a heat shelter design contest conducted by Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology & the Environment (ATREE). Designed for informal workers, such as pourakarmikas, haulers, waste pickers, street vendors, gig workers and coolies, the shelter has been prototyped for the first time for the exhibition. A scalable model 'We wanted to do a shelter design that is scalable across India. That's how we thought of a chassis and frame system,' said Mr. Kandal. The shelter, which consists of a metal frame, canopy, bench, and curtain, has been designed in such a way that it can be hinged onto a compound wall without touching the ground. This way it doesn't encroach the space on the footpaths, the architects pointed out. The curtain made of jute bags not only insulates it from heat, but also doubles up as a fan. 'A lot of industrial equipment go to waste. A thought behind designing the shelter with such material was whether we could salvage them and directly use them thus bypassing the recycling process which in itself is energy consuming,' said Mr. Kandal. Nudging to take ownership Mr. Diggavi added to it: 'We designed it in such a way that it does not touch the ground, folds up onto itself, and we are proposing that a private compound wall owner can lend his wall for this to be set up. This way it does not interfere with public space and we are nudging even citizens to take the ownership and onus of providing these things to the vulnerable.' Noting that the shelter would cost around ₹20,000, the architects hope that government officials would come on board to scale the model. A bottom-up approach The two-day exhibition, organised by People First Cities, an initiative bysocial movement incubator Purpose, also features the runner-up designs from the competition and panel discussions that include voices from the vulnerable communities. 'The focus is on thinking about how cities can be designed in a more participatory, inclusive manner from the bottom up,' said Kanishk Kabiraj from People First Cities. 'In the garden city of Bengaluru, heat is often a blind spot. But it's not going to stay the same way. Last year was the hottest year on record globally and heat impacts different people differently. Planning and decision-making need to include communities who are the most impacted by the rapid expansion of the city,' he added. Sonali Bhasin from People First Cities noted that heat action plans in Indian cities often lack vulnerability assessment and action policies that impact informal sector workers. 'We wanted to bring that to the attention of regular citizens as well as decision makers of Bengaluru and try for a more solution-oriented way,' she said. Admission to the exhibition is free and open to the public till May 30 at Sabha Space on Kamraj Road.
Hindustan Times
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Design for the hot earth
Once, the future was a fantastic place. All you need to remember — or look up — are the 'electronic superhighways' of the South Korean oracle artist Nam June Paik. In the 1970s, he created a network of communication pathways, akin to modern highways, but using electronic signals, that would bridge distances and connect cultures. The concept anticipated the Internet and a global communication networks dominating the world. Today, the future isn't all that fantastic — if it is, the fantastic has an eerie ring to it. What happens when heat begins to subsume all life? It's a quintessentially Gen-Z anxiety. It isn't anyway easy to foresee something which does not yet exist. Artists, filmmakers and writers have always done that. Now, with the inexorably looming threats of a shrinking, hot planet, the artist is having to imagine alternatives. The Neralu Heat Shelter by architect-urban planner duo Ankritya Diggavi and Sagar Kandal, which navigates the world of both functional design and art, tell us there are alternatives to the way things are and could be — that another world is possible. How might the waste pickers, haulers, street vendors, gig workers on the street and coolies of Bengaluru — the city's floating population of manual wage workers — find reprieve from heat, sweat and concrete? This functional climate design model offers a solution. The Neralu Heat Shelter is part of Sweat & Concrete 2025, an exhibition of multimedia storytelling and live performance art organised by People First Cities, an initiative by Purpose — a strategy consultancy, creative agency and social movement incubator — that helps drive inclusive, participatory approaches to urban planning and management. The two-day exhibition to be held at the Sabha Space in Bengaluru, a 160-year-old building transformed into a public space for arts, culture, and community events, on May 29 and 30, delves into the lived realities of informal workers including construction labourers, street vendors and domestic helpers who bear the biggest brunt of rising temperatures in cities. The Neralu Heat Shelter is a combination of mechanical and natural ventilation — louvres on the front face block direct glare from the road, and double as a mechanically operable fan system. A service tower on the side provides storage and a space to dispense potable water. The structure folds up against the wall, when not in use. A light, easily scalable road-side heat shelter design aimed at finding affordable, scalable solutions for the vulnerable population of workers on city streets, the Shelter won a contest held last years by the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment (ATREE), in collaboration with the Wipro Foundation and Azim Premji University. This sculptural installation shows what futuristic art with an emphasis on function could look like in months and years to come. Climate art isn't predictably functional. A majority of eco-narratives — in words, images, materials or other vehicles — are doom-laden. But it's beginning to show up is art galleries, big and small, everywhere. To celebrate Earth Month in April, New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) highlighted of artists, designers, architects, filmmakers, and other creatives who are dedicated to thinking critically about and advocating for our fragile world. From artists making environmental activism a hallmark of their work, to documentaries about the climate crisis, to architectural projects that create more sustainable cities — MoMA in April showed that art is a central force in addressing the changing planet. Globally, a growing number of artists are seeking alternatives to the doom we have nightmares about — art and design that navigate the intersection of climate justice and creative expression, meant not only to spark dialogue on the role of art and design in addressing global challenges to environmental challenges of the day, like rising temperatures, floods and forest fires, but going a step further, to make such a design functional in cities specific to a region or a country. The Shelter is one such pioneering work. 'We feel the basic 'mandate' for all of design is to achieve a good degree of sensitivity and sensibility. Academically, we have been a part of forums and tables that are trying to recognize sensible, sensitive and nuanced design possibilities in various realms,' says Diggavi, an architect and researcher currently working at the Charles Correa Foundation. Kandal, also an architect, is lead designer at the Indian Institute of Science, exploring modular and mobile spaces, and the duo's work looks ahead to a better urban environment. A precursor to this competition was an urban study on informal heat shading methods in Ahmedabad. During the course of this study, conversations with vendors and service providers on the street revealed their grievances and tussle with local authority, for taking up public space. 'We observed, recorded, and derived. The primary gesture is of defiance — detached from the ground, from 'public space' and completely supported by a privately owned compound wall,' says the creators. The materials used were sourced from Bengaluru's markets and the industrial area of Yeshwanthpur. Diggavi and Kandal say they went back and forth on alternative materials, ultimately deciding that the materials could change based on availability and location. In this context, it is bamboo, reclaimed wood, repurposed industrial metal waste and other found materials. Iterations of this idea have been brainstormed, but a majority of site-specific works tend to be inflexible infrastructure attempts. In January this year, the Union culture and tourism minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat inaugurated a gallery dedicated to climate change at Science City, Kolkata, where artists and sculptors create site-specific, fixed installations inspired by familiar eco-narratives around the world today. The Shelter upturns the rigid site-specific installations to a functional, scaleable template — one that not only reimagines the impact of climate crises on vulnerable human populations, but solution it offers is adaptable and mutable. As Kandal says, 'Public infrastructure right now is designed with durability and longevity in mind, hence its rigidity, both in design and material. We feel this is a double-edged sword. While the designs may last, they are not accommodating of change. Why not design for flux instead?' Says Sonali Bhasin, associate strategy director at Purpose, 'Heat stress, unlike sanitation, or floods, heat is an 'invisible' factor - one that impacts people differently based on a variety of factors. And no two cities or human settlements have the same conditions. As a result, participatory research, storytelling and surfacing locally relevant solutions are essential towards building a more inclusive, resilient, enduring response to the rising heat in cities - especially high-growth, high-density cities which are expanding rapidly.' Climate architecture and design has several practitioners in India, which includes Chitra Vishwanath, Sanjay Puri, Priyanka Gunjikar and Dhruvang Hinmire, Laurie Baker and others. But the Shelter, in form as well as aesthetic, is more akin to works of artists rather than urban planners or architects — a functional nod to climate artists such as such as Ravi Agarwal, Atul Bhalla, Gigi Scaria, Chandra Bhattacharjee, Thukral and Tagra, Meera George, Tapan Moharana, Sashikant Thavudoz and many more who have explored themes of ecological degradation in their works through painting, installation, mixed media and photography. Other artists such as Sharbendu De, Manav Gupta, Tapan Moharana and Sadhna Prasad are known for their immersive and sustained engagement with climate-related displacements and destruction. Manav Gupta's Beehive Garden Project uses earthen chilams (earthen rural cigars) and kullars (earthen cups) to create beehives that can occupy every garden and home, a gentle creative reminder to preserve bees and biodiversity. The Delhi-based artist duo Jatin Thukral and Sumir Tagra, largely known for their playful, often surreal multi-media installations, run the Sustaina India platform, which brings together art and climate science to inspire collective action. They explore the cultural and political dimensions of climate change, often incorporating sustainable materials into their installations. 'As creators, we firmly believe in the power of materials to channel a sensorium of touch, smell, sound, and vision as paths to climate awareness and retention for the current and future generations,' the duo writes in their mandate for Sustaina India. The power of art to initiate and vitalise pressing issues of the world has some spectacular examples. When it comes to the climate crisis, Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson is a pioneer. His ecologically-minded sensorial experiences have often shown how valuable firsthand experience is when it comes to raising awareness and delivering lasting impact. His mammoth sculptural work Ice Watch, a travelling show of glacial ice taken from the sea near Nuuk, Greenland from 2014 blurred the idea of the artist and the activist in astounding ways: Eliasson and a team of geologists navigated the ice chunks to Paris' Climate Change Conference and other major cities. Imagine the buzzing heart of a modern city, with colossal ice chunks — the idea being, to bring the urgent reality of melting glaciers closer to home. In 2019, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, possibly the most renowned artist-activist of the 21st century, created Roots, a series of monumental sculptural works in iron, cast from giant tree roots sourced in Brazil. It was a plea to sensitise his followers and fans about deforestation, specifically the destruction of the Amazon rainforests. Cultural theorist Malcolm Miles, the author of 'Art Rebellion: The Aesthetics of Social Transformation', has said that if eco-narrative becomes entertainment, the message may be lost. Miles writes that there is hope if the art actively showcases the future and 'imagines what alternative futures might be'. The Neralu Heat Shelter is eloquent and human-forward in such an imagining. Heat & Sweat 2025, at The Sabha Space, No. 44/A, Kamaraj Road, Bharati Nagar, Shivajinagar, Bengaluru, May 29-30. Sanjukta Sharma is a Mumbai-based journalist.
