Mapping Mapusa Market
Lead Research Organisation:
Newcastle University
Department Name: Sch of Arts and Cultures
Abstract
Mapping Mapusa Market is an exploration into how a local Indian market can be creatively 'mapped' or documented at a key moment of change in the retail environment in India. The project will capture collaborative work initiated by the innovative UnBox Fellowships. It will feature a variety of creative voices and modes of working and make these available through an open-access on-line resource.
Goa based organisation 'People Tree' identified the value of a sustainable 'map' of Mapusa Market based on a set of exciting and innovative creative responses to the market. Mapping Mapusa Market creatively expands from this vision to investigate how a physically contained but multi-layered public space can be vividly and informatively mapped in ways other than through conventional topographical mapping. It will explore how an interdisciplinary team of creative practitioners can contribute to this process and how material can be published through an open access on-line resource. It will explore what value can be brought to this process through the co-creation of knowledge by collaborators from different disciplinary and cultural backgrounds, drawn both from academia and professional practice, from the creative industries and the business environment.
Mapusa Market is both a typical Indian market, and distinctive and unique. As a commercial organism, the market attracts local traders as well as merchants from adjoining states. Every Friday it swells to accommodate hundreds of daily vendors who set up improvised pitches selling home-grown produce, delicacies, spices and toddy. The vast array of merchandise available is reflected in the range of visitors including Goans and local and international tourists who come to do business, browse, socialise, catch up on gossip on or to experience the vibrant atmosphere. The Market can also be understood as an affinity space where the exchange of a range of specialist knowledge takes place, much of it about repairing items that would be discarded elsewhere but are given a new lease of life here. Much of this knowledge is likely to be lost over coming decades.
Whilst Mapusa market is self-evidently a thriving commercial environment with fierce competition for space and a bustling and prosperous dynamic, it is also a fragile organism: India is strategically opening up to direct foreign investment (FDI) and the inevitable arrival of large supermarkets means that India's local markets will soon face the same challenges as their global counterparts.
To create the map of this vibrant cultural accumulation, a range of market users including shoppers, day vendors and market workers will chart their 'market walk'. Whether portering goods, scouting for trade or browsing for souvenirs each participant will create a vivid picture of their experience of the market. Using specially designed tools for creative production, the project will build up a series of vivid 'cross-sectional' views. Organised into a cohesive body of work and uploaded onto a website that also invites contributions from others, the project will explore the market both as a nexus of cultural, commercial and social relationships, a hub for cultural production and an exciting physical place.
Goa based organisation 'People Tree' identified the value of a sustainable 'map' of Mapusa Market based on a set of exciting and innovative creative responses to the market. Mapping Mapusa Market creatively expands from this vision to investigate how a physically contained but multi-layered public space can be vividly and informatively mapped in ways other than through conventional topographical mapping. It will explore how an interdisciplinary team of creative practitioners can contribute to this process and how material can be published through an open access on-line resource. It will explore what value can be brought to this process through the co-creation of knowledge by collaborators from different disciplinary and cultural backgrounds, drawn both from academia and professional practice, from the creative industries and the business environment.
Mapusa Market is both a typical Indian market, and distinctive and unique. As a commercial organism, the market attracts local traders as well as merchants from adjoining states. Every Friday it swells to accommodate hundreds of daily vendors who set up improvised pitches selling home-grown produce, delicacies, spices and toddy. The vast array of merchandise available is reflected in the range of visitors including Goans and local and international tourists who come to do business, browse, socialise, catch up on gossip on or to experience the vibrant atmosphere. The Market can also be understood as an affinity space where the exchange of a range of specialist knowledge takes place, much of it about repairing items that would be discarded elsewhere but are given a new lease of life here. Much of this knowledge is likely to be lost over coming decades.
Whilst Mapusa market is self-evidently a thriving commercial environment with fierce competition for space and a bustling and prosperous dynamic, it is also a fragile organism: India is strategically opening up to direct foreign investment (FDI) and the inevitable arrival of large supermarkets means that India's local markets will soon face the same challenges as their global counterparts.
To create the map of this vibrant cultural accumulation, a range of market users including shoppers, day vendors and market workers will chart their 'market walk'. Whether portering goods, scouting for trade or browsing for souvenirs each participant will create a vivid picture of their experience of the market. Using specially designed tools for creative production, the project will build up a series of vivid 'cross-sectional' views. Organised into a cohesive body of work and uploaded onto a website that also invites contributions from others, the project will explore the market both as a nexus of cultural, commercial and social relationships, a hub for cultural production and an exciting physical place.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Andrew Burton (Principal Investigator) |
| Title | Gallery presentation for the AHRC Image Gallery |
| Description | This new selection of images of the Mapping Mapusa Market research project was published on the AHRC Image Gallery during January 2016. The purpose of the image gallery was to present an accessible overview of some of the project outputs for visitors to the AHRC website. |
| Type Of Art | Image |
| Year Produced | 2016 |
| Impact | This product has brought our research to a wider audience, primarily those academics who visit the AHRC website |
| URL | http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/research/readwatchlisten/imagegallery/mapping-mapusa-market/ |
| Title | Mapping Mapusa Market |
| Description | The Mapping Mapusa Market website records an exploration into how a typical Indian local market can be creatively and collaboratively 'mapped'. Researchers Bahbak Hashemi-Nezhad, Stanzin Losal and Andrew Burton worked with project partner, Orijit Sen, Director of People Tree to create a series of workshops and live interventions that aimed to open up new perspectives on this dynamic and vibrant - but vulnerable - space. Mapping Mapusa Market involved the generation of new creative works including performances, murals, videos and sculpture. These works have been 'mapped' onto a new website that invites further contributions. The creative products are therefore a series of temporary artworks and artefacts which are mapped onto the Mapusa Market website The project began with market users devising 'their' walk through the market. Whether carrying goods, scouting for trade or browsing souvenirs, each walk had a special purpose based on their creators' individual knowledge, experience or expectations. As the research developed, this set of 'cross-sectional views' was extended with works created by new participants. These works, plotted onto a topographical view of the market on the Mapping Mapusa Market website, represents a range of creative responses, charting Mapusa market as a nexus of cultural, commercial and social relationships. Through this process the project extends knowledge of this uniquely vibrant, complex and dynamic hub of commerce and cultural production. |
| Type Of Art | Artefact (including digital) |
| Year Produced | 2014 |
| Impact | As a result of early research, in 2013 Goa University offered Project Partner Orijit Sen the newly established Mario Miranda Chair of Design based at the University's Mapusa campus, thus presenting an opportunity for the project to develop further within an Indian academic context. Local collaborators and participants in the project have continued to create material and add this to the website (as well as creating their own parallel websites) demonstrating a continuing interest in the project's theme A wide audience, including artists, academics and students, has been engaged through seminars, lectures and workshops. Hashemi-Nezhad presented the project at 'Designing Futures' ICA, London. Burton discussed the project at a talk and Q and A session at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Art, Norwich, at a lecture in the 'Materials Library' series at Bergen Academy for Art and Design . The project will be presented at a forthcoming lectures at Wolverhampton and Sheffield Hallam Universities and at the Serpentine Gallery in London; at a symposium at Kingston University on mapping informal spaces and at a practical workshop and at an Art and Heritage conference both at Newcastle University. Participation in the Alchemy Festival brought the research to a wider international audience affording them the opportunity to explore live 'mapping' with the camera rig specially designed for the project. The Project has impacted on its many participants, introducing them to creative research methodologies, deepening knowledge and appreciation of an important - and vulnerable - local resource and by broadening horizons: "It was exciting to see perceptions of the market change and participants beginning to find aspects and stories of the market previously unknown. It was fascinating when discussions evolved into debates around Goan culture, the predominant presence of women in the market, the unique culture of bread, or the presence of migrant workers. These discussions really moved the project forward and kept redefining the project's parameters. (workshop participant) In India, the project has encouraged its participants to engage in further creative work |
| URL | http://www.mapusamarket.net/ |
| Description | Mapping Mapusa Market is an exploration into how a typical Indian local market can be creatively and collaboratively 'mapped'. Researchers Bahbak Hashemi-Nezhad, Stanzin Losal and Andrew Burton worked with project partner, Orijit Sen, Director of People Tree to create a series of workshops and live interventions to open up new perspectives on the market. Mapping Mapusa Market involved the generation of new creative work: performances, murals, videos, walks, painting and sculpture. |
| Exploitation Route | As a Professor at Goa University, Orijit Sen now has the opportunity to embed the workshops into the academic programme - the University welcomes non-student participants. Project participants and collaborators in India have continued make work documenting Mapusa Market, and have added this material to the project website |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Creative Economy |
| Description | non-academic users of the research have used the website created to navigate the market. Their artworks, which build on the research have been added to the website. The project led to the establishment of a number of informal study groups in Mapusa who created exhibitions and developed other dialogues around the market. This work has continued at a local level, in Mapusa, down to 2017 |
| First Year Of Impact | 2014 |
| Sector | Creative Economy,Government, Democracy and Justice,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal |
| Description | Mapping Mapusa Market |
| Geographic Reach | Europe |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | The project contributed to the developmental work of the newly established the newly established Mario Miranda Chair based at Goa University's Mapusa campus. Orijit Sen, who was appointed to an inaugural Chair, proposed to use the role to develop the study of the market though the series of market workshops which would be delivered to members of the public enrolled on the PG module. This included a range of participants, including artists, local entrepreneurs and business people, market enthusiasts, students, teachers. The impact of this work is hard to quantify, but was felt both in the way that the project reached market users through the creation of art, and through participants' changed attitudes: for example, one participant provided the following feedback '...Personally, the project since the beginning has been steep learning curve for me as a creative practitioner. I learnt a lot about formulating a research project, making successful collaborations, how to deal with an evolving and dynamic subject of research like Mapusa Market and about different ways of approaching and thinking about a multi-faceted project. I gained a new understanding of Goa, with its unique colonial history within the larger context of India. Due to my upbringing, I have always felt strongly about the class divide. Lower income groups see a different reality compared to my own and the fact that I never had the opportunity to really engage with them meant that there was a lot I did not know about who they are, where they're from, their perception. The fact that the project was based in a market, engaging its occupants intensively, where most of the day vendors were from low income groups, a lot of them doing the same trade over a long time, made me feel closer to their reality - before which I had a limited understanding. The project has made me, as an indian, more critical of the fast changing commercial environment of india, where for example the trend of an all encompassing super market has emerged for the upper classes. And how, for us, the idea of a street market is starting to be seen with a nostalgic lens already |
| Description | AHRC Image Gallery |
| Amount | £4,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2015 |
| End | 11/2015 |
| Title | Interactive website development |
| Description | The development of an interactive functionality on the website allows contributions on the topic of the research to be built up over time. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Hashemi Nezhad, a member of the research team, has used the website format as a tool to help understand spatial and social complexities in the UK. Primarily working in Church St Market, London, his project involved interaction with well-established communities and small businesses who are facing regeneration and decanting. • |
| URL | http://www.mapusamarket.net |
| Description | Mapping Mapusa Market |
| Organisation | People Tree |
| Country | India |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | The Unbox Team, comprising Burton, Bahbak Hashemi Nezhad, Stanzin Losal developed a partnership with People Tree (based in Delhi and Assagao, Goa) through the AHRC/British Council/Science and Innovation fund participation in the 'Unbox' project in 2013. Mapping Mapusa Market sought to develop and strengthen this partnership through fieldwork in Goa and through the development of an on-line resource. The collaboration between the Unbox team and People Tree lay at the heart of the project, developing sustainable ties between academics, artists, designers and market users. As a result of the initial project, a collaboration with Goa University where Orijit Sen was appointed Visiting Professor was established. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Mapping Mapusa Market aimed to develop a series of collaborative investigations that would document Mapusa Market through a set of creative responses and interventions, leading to the development of an innovative and interactive website. People Tree were an integral part of the research team from the outset, and, through their network in India were able to facilitate further collaborations with a range of market users. The involvement of Goa University, who provided a base for the research in Goa, enabled the project to engage a wider range of market users. |
| Impact | Mapping Mapusa Market website Exhibitions in Mapusa Market - Interdisciplinary involving fine artists, designers, educators, geographers |
| Start Year | 2013 |
| Description | 'Mane' a performance created by the artist Sharmistha Kar |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | In collaboration with the project team, the Indian artist Sharmistha Kar created a performance work 'Mane' in Mapusa Market. The performance, which involved working with market goods, engaged a large audience in the market A wide audience was engaged, most notably market users who would not usually participate in, or consume, contemporary art. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| URL | http://mappingmapusamarket.wordpress.com/2014/01/ |
| Description | Mapping Mapusa Market (Market Day) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Supporters |
| Results and Impact | 25 members of the public and participants in the research attended an event which disseminated knowledge of the project and sparked discussion further workshops and creative interventions |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | Mapping Mapusa Market (workshop 2) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | 12 students from Goa University participated in a workshop in Mapusa Market New work was created |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | Mapping Mapusa Market (workshop 3) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Participants in your research and patient groups |
| Results and Impact | 15 participants from across India came to Goa to participate in the workshop, this sparked new thinking about the nature and importance of local markets in India and led to the generation of new creative work. Participants created new work for the Mapping Mapusa Market website. Their work in the market engaged a range of market users, including stallholders, shoppers and tourists |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | Mapping Mapusa Market, a short film by Stazin Losal |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Stanzin Losal presented a short film in the entrance to Mapusa Market Members of the audience reported an interest in the project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| URL | http://mappingmapusamarket.wordpress.com/2014/01/ |
| Description | Mapping Mapusa Market, workshop at Goa University |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | 20 workshop participants, including students, artists, designers, business people, teachers and academics attended a presentation about the project and an introduction to the project's aims. This sparked debate and led to live interventions and creative work in Mapusa Market, culminating in a public exhibition in the Market A body of creative work was made. Further workshops were requested. A wider range of participants were attracted to join the project. Several of the participants, under the guidance of the project team have created a website. The creative work was exhibited in an exhibition in Mapusa Market |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| URL | http://mappingmapusamarket.wordpress.com/ |
| Description | Materials Library, Bergen Academy of Art |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | talked sparked questions and discussion A closer research liaison between Bergen Academy and Newcastle University, as evidenced for example, by their participation in the conference 'Material Memories' |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| Description | Visiting Lecture at Hyderabad University |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | This was an invited lecture given to staff, postgraduate and undergraduate students at Hyderabad Univeristy |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | defamiliarization Lab |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | It led to the generation of new creative work Students are equipped with new creative tools which will aid the development of their individual practices |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | workshops and talk at Makerere University, Uganda |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | These workshops explored the use of cheap, re-used or recycled materials for making art. They explored artisanal approaches to making, such as those practised in local markets. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015,2016 |