There are numerous reports by experts on Global water-based displacement owing to the climate crisis. In addition to this, we have, over the past few centuries also witnessed displacement caused by large scales water infrastructures such as dams, long-distance pipelines, promenades, and riverfront developments. This project aims to tackle the latter, which are politically and economically spearheaded decisions, in order to bring attention to people-centred means of managing and organizing water infrastructure to address water equity. We aim to capture lived experiences, and voices of experts associated with the water sector, to harness the power of documentary films to create social change.
This project is aimed at being the first of many such endeavours to create multimedia representations of water heritage in rapidly growing cities such as Pune. We ask the following questions- how can the representation of water in various media (including but not limited to political campaigns, development plans, popular film, water museums, visual art) create and restore sustainable nature-culture relationships? Can we shift from large scale water infrastructure to small scale decentralized infrastructure? How can we build on traditional water systems to enable decentralized access? How can rethinking mental models inform governance structures?
