All tagged urban spaces

Interview with Sedekah Benih – Urban Ecology and Community-based Art Activism

Sedekah Benih is a collaborative and urban environmental practice initiated by an urban farming activist, Dian Nurdiana (Mang Dian), and artist Vincent Rumahloine in 2020 in one of the dense urban neighborhoods in Cibogo, Bandung, West Java. It aims to share and exchange knowledge of urban farming more widely and build a community of “tiis leungen” (Sundanese for “cold arms”), a term comparable to the English “green thumbs”. Drawn from a localized Arabic word and concept of صدقة (sadaqah), which means “righteousness” and refers to the giving of charity, Sedekah Benih aims to share seeds of everyday staple plants that can be grown in dense community spaces and used for local and domestic needs. It encourage collaborators to share the seeds of plants they received with others from their communities, growing connected communities.

Sustaining Spaces of idol-crafting and communities of practice: Seasonality, adaptability, and cultural identities in Kumartuli, Kolkata

Kolkata’s Kumartuli neighbourhood remains the centre of idol-crafting for Durga Puja, a Hindu festival that has been nominated for UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage status. Iconic clay idols are prepared in Kumartuli for over six months, where festival preparations reach their peak in the monsoon and early autumn. While clay idol-making has been studied extensively as religious art/craft less attention has been paid within material religion to the creation and use of religious space as festival-making, and the type of spatial practices required. Constant negotiations and adaptations are required within cramped spaces to accommodate a large seasonal informal workforce and the multi-layered exchanges despite the failing infrastructure of the unorganized neighbourhood/slum of Kumartuli. To carry out this operation during the festive period within this densely inhabited area the existing physical infrastructure must be appropriated and adapted to insufficient services, place branding and varying degrees of policing. Based on ethnographic fieldnotes, mapping and visual documentation, this paper explores the operations and logistics of idol-making through the narrow lanes. It argues that what makes this an interesting “community of practice” is the dynamic between facilities being stretched to breaking point (and peoples’ grievances) as well as the continuing faith-led consumer demand for clay crafts. That is, scholarly understanding of Durga Puja as a religious practice or Kumartuli as a craft neighbourhood must be located against the complex backdrop of the growing commodification of a cultural craft, as well as how associated caste and other networks have evolved over time to facilitate these practices despite congested and competitive spatial and relational configurations.

Civil Religion in Turkey: The Unifying and Divisive Potential of Material Symbols

Civil religion refers to citizens’ devotion and loyalty to the nation and state. Like other religions, it needs symbols that bond citizens to different notions and experiences whether non-tangible forms (political beliefs, the law, or a constitution) or tangible (flags, images, statues, and spaces). Visual representations of these forms can unite people around common values, goals, and history. This paper aims to widen our understanding of the importance of material objects in developing and sustaining national bonds in Turkey where objects and spaces have long helped to form and maintain Turkish identity, and mobilize and unite people.

Thinking with the Tabot: The Material Dimensions of Waiting in Addis Ababa

Alexandra Antohin uses the material analogy of the Ethiopian tabot to explore alternative dispositions to waiting and indeterminacy. She explores how ‘moving foundations’ of the home and church facilitate conditions of sustaining instability. This thought-provoking discussion considers how dilemmas of displacement and the manipulation of time during crises, such as urban resettlement, can revise sociocultural assumptions about the march of time as moving fast and forward.