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charikleia karamali
Inter 3

The project deals with the current scenario of sacred waste polluting the sea in Chowpatty Beach, in Mumbai. Speculating scenarios for future expansion of the densely populated island of Mumbai - while looking back at the history of its formation as one state out of seven islands through the process of reclamation - the tonnes of festival remains are accumulated in the sea and manifested throughout their physical presence.

Through a process of collection, solidification and partial decay, these volumes set the foundations for the potential new land on the water, as a comment to the vast, religious and toxic consumption. An underwater archaeology is in process of construction, where the modern fossils of Lord Ganesha are taking shape. From environmental issues to community involvement, the new landscape is curated by the Ganesha Institute of Reclamation - the remover of all obstacles. It technically supports the process of growing land in the sea, at the same time invites back local communities to shape and occupy the new sacred geography of Mumbai while it communicates the process of this expansion to the rest of the world. 

Mediating between those two terrains the Institute gathers information from the ever-growing state of Mumbai to the emerging landscape. While the history of the new land is being recorded, the data is shared in the internet and the Institute gains a strong place in the world market of capital exchange and land investment.

The extreme scenarios that this new landscape entails, symbolise the global speculations of the emerging India, a ground of investment, corporations and moving credits overlayed upon the initial sociocultural foundations of rituals, appropriation and lack of control.