Multipolis Mumbai: Mapping Towns within the City

Ranjit Hostoke is a cultural theorist, curator and poet. He is the author of more than 25 books, including Vanishing Acts: New & Selected Poems 1985-2005 (Penguin, 2006) and Central Time (Penguin/ Viking, 2014), and the monographs Zinny & Maidagan: Compartment/ Das Abteil (Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt/ Walther König, 2010) and Atul Dodiya (Prestel, 2014). Hoskote has translated the poetry of the 14th-century Kashmiri mystic Lal Ded as I, Lalla: The Poems of Lal Ded (Penguin Classics, 2011). With Ilija Trojanow, he has co-authored Kampfabsage (Blessing, 2007; in English as Confluences: Forgotten Histories from East and West, Yoda, 2012). With Nancy Adajania, he is co-author of The Dialogues Series (Popular, 2011), an unfolding programme of conversations with artists. With Maria Hlavajova, he is editor of Future Publics: A Critical Reader in Contemporary Art (BAK, forthcoming). Since 1993, Hoskote has curated 30 exhibitions of contemporary art, including two monographic surveys of Atul Dodiya (Bombay: Labyrinth/ Laboratory, Japan Foundation, Tokyo, 2001; and Experiments with Truth: Atul Dodiya, Works 1981-2013, National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, 2013), a lifetime retrospective of Jehangir Sabavala (National Gallery of Modern Art, Bombay and New Delhi, 2005-2006), a historical survey of Indian abstraction, Nothing is Absolute (with Mehlli Gobhai; CSMVS/ The Prince of Wales Museum, Bombay, 2013), and a survey of 150 years of art by Parsi artists within the narrative of an emergent Indian modernism, No Parsi is an Island (with Nancy Adajania; National Gallery of Modern Art, Bombay, 2013-2014). Over 2000-2002, Hoskote co-curated the trans-Asian collaborative project, ‘Under Construction’ (Japan Foundation: Tokyo and other Asian centres). Hoskote co-curated the 7th Gwangju Biennale (2008) He was curator of India’s first-ever national pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2011). And a jury Member of the 56th Venice Biennale.

Sarover Zaidi is currently writing her PhD on religion, architecture and urban spaces of Bombay. Her work, ethnographically traces the manners in which everyday life and architectural practices enmesh to produce a city spaces. She has specifically focused on the old 'native' town of Bombay, namely Mohammad Ali road area, and has explored the manners in which architectural aspirations of people and city planners, concede and contest social and political formations of the city. She also curates a series titled 'Elementary forms and the City' , which brings together interdisciplinary formats of looking at city spaces. She has previously studied philosophy and social anthropology, worked in rural public health, and is currently an INTACH fellow.

"Zameer Basrai is co-founder of TheBusride Design studio. He has degrees from CEPT, Ahmedabad, India and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. TheBusride is an independent design studio specializing in the design and creation of built environments, both temporary and permanent. Their work spans across hospitality and entertainment venues, to film and production environments, and from exhibitions and installations, to institutional environments. Led by Ayaz and Zameer Basrai, the studio is a small team of architects and industrial designers, who work in a multi-disciplinary environment across micro to the macro scales. Apart from design, the studio has diverse research interests in heritage conservation, Islamic architecture and urban futures. They work from Mumbai and Goa."

"Gopal MS aka Mumbai Paused is a photoblogger who shoots streets of Mumbai and tries to peel layers of the city like an onion using photographs. He has been shooting the streets of Mumbai since 2008, in tales and scenes that weave larger narratives about a place that is constantly evolving in digital formats like blogs, social media and through self published digital photobooks. He tries to show the city's inhabitants cling gracefully to a sense of self in the face of adversity and change. His latest book is called Matsyagandha-Low tide smells of the Island City and explores the . Mumbaipaused.com @mumbaipaused (Instagram) @sloganmurugan (Twitter)"

Ranjit Kandalgaonkar lives and works in Mumbai. His practice focuses primarily on unseen and ignored processes of urbanization which he addresses in his project ‘cityinflux’. Other long term projects such as ‘Gentricity’, ‘Stories of Philanthropic Trusts’, ‘build/browse’, 'Isles amidst reclamation' and 'Seven Isles unclaimed' attempt to unlock historical and contemporary data placing the work in the context of an unseen social history. For e.g., since 2009, 'Stories of Philanthropic Trusts' is a research project documenting the benevolent activites of communities living in trusts in 19th century Bombay. 'Modelled Recycled Systems' is a long term project recording ship-breaking practices at Alang,Gujarat & (Darukhana)Mumbai. Part of the project, Shipping & the Shipped was showcased at the Bergen Assembly, Art & Research Triennial in 2016. He is the recipient of the Majlis Visual Arts Fellowship, SAI Harvard University artist residency, U.D.R.I Architectural Fellowship, a Wellcome Trust Seed Award, Leverhulme Trust Artist in Residence and Gasworks artist residency in collaboration with Wellcome Collections last year for which he produced a drawing depicting his research on the Bombay plague of 1896.