The Impressions Project (Luncheon)

HD Video  5 min 02 sec  2014

In collaboration with Rahul Bhattacharya. There are notions of contemporary cities, and there are contemporary notions about rivers.The river and its resources have led to burgeoning cities, yet the birth and growth of the city has meant the slow death of rivers. Polluted and encroached upon, they still hold capital value for the real estate industry and riverside locations are sold at high premiums.This work explores such dystopias in relationships between the city and its river. By appropriating and re-enacting Manet’s ‘Luncheon on the Grass’ at a construction site along the riverbank, we bring Surat and its Tapi river into the discursive focus.