New Mumbai

During the Indian Civil War, the Dharavi slums of Mumbai were flooded with refugees looking to escape the conflict. The Mumbai authorities, distracted by defense of the city and facing an already over-populated and poverty stricken slum could do little to maintain a semblance of civilised life in the area. Sometime later a cache of biological samples appeared through the criminal networks of Mumbai, in the vain hope that it might provide new marketable narcotic opportunities. The collective drive and expertise of the refugees managed to turn these genetically-engineered fungal samples into a new type of infrastructure providing heat, light and building material for the refugees. Dharavi rapidly evolved its own micro-economy based around the mushrooms. This documentary tells the story of some of the characters involved from Mumbai and the rest of the world and how Dharavi came to be such a unique place.

Additional Info

  • Author(s): Tobias Revell
  • Year(s): 2012
  • Bio:

    Tobias Revell is an artist and designer. Spanning different media and genres, his work addresses failed utopias, rogue actors, unexplained phenomena, and the idea of technology as territory. Tobias is Senior Lecturer in Critical and Digital Design at the London College of Communication, UAL. He is a co-founder of research consultancy Strange Telemetry and one-half of research and curatorial project Haunted Machines. He lectures and exhibits internationally, and has recently appeared at Improving Reality, FutureEverything, Impakt Utrecht, Web Directions Sydney, Transmediale Berlin and Lift Geneva. He is a PhD candidate in design at Goldsmiths.

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