Rethinking Waste - Artist Residency Programme - Plastic Mahal, April 2020 - December 2020

The Rethinking Waste project, funded by the UK’s Global Challenges Research Fund, confronts the question of waste and disposability through the introduction of an experimental design and learning space, Compound 13 Lab. At the Lab, young people are placed at the centre of their own learning, to co-design and develop a bespoke ‘living curriculum’ that responds to their issues, addresses their needs and aids their future goals. The implementation of the Lab is intended to create a space of enquiry where these local knowledges and practices can be communicated within and beyond Dharavi, through a process of increasingly self-organised making and learning.

The Palace of Plastic (Plastic Mahal) is a temporary public sculpture and political performance in the mode of a processional ritual that occurs in various sites across the city of Mumbai. The house is built from the city’s waste, which aggregates in the informal recycling centre in Dharavi’s 13th Compound. The Plastic Mahal project was selected for The New School/University of Melbourne's Project Anywhere.

This item contains photographs of the sculpture Plastic Mahal, a composite maquette for the project by Ian Dawson, and photographs of the recycling industry in Dharavi. It also contains a description of the project and a link to the Project Anywhere website (see also 'References' below).

Images courtesy of Ben Parry, Lia Mazzari and Ian Dawson. Used with permission.

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