History lessons from a bird's eye view

The New Media is taking over the cinemascape, and new and innovative methods are being used to create art in the world of movies. The digital is now very much a part of the world of films and has found expression through movies. One of these is the use of footage as film. A live talk at the MAMI festival on Friday had a 360-degree footage of Lower Parel from Phoenix Mills and then a retelling of their history. The talk, performed by Simpreet Singh, Ashok Sukumaran and Shaina Anand of Camp, an art collaborative based out of Bandra, used the footage from a single CCTV camera mounted on the roof of the Phoenix mills. 

One could not just see the entire area around Parel, from the Hopkins Institute to the far-off mills, but also the open sea and Haji Ali Dargah, simultaneously getting a glimpse into their past through the commentary. From wide-angle spreads of the sea to a labourer fixing the signages on the roof of Phoenix mills, the power and voyeurism of the gaze were both highlighted. The walk down memory lane was started by Ashok, who took the audience back to the 1890 and the time when a series of hot air balloon rides took place around Parel. “A number of people rose in balloons made of silk… A lieutenant in the British navy also went up in the balloon, but the air went out too fast from his balloon and he fell to the ground,” he recalled from the pages of history. And with that descent, the camera angle too, came down to the streets of Lower Parel. 

Another story that Shaina recalls is how Love Grove in Worli became a favourite vacationing spot for Mumbaikars. “Because Mazagaon was already populated with people looking for holiday homes, people eventually decided to make Love Grove, which was then not very populated, into a vacation spot,” she said.

Simpreet’s recollection caused the camera to pan across the Lower Parel skyline and focus on the Mazagaon docks. “The docks were made from Kurla stone. There was a hill in Kurla and it was stone from this hill that was used to create the docks. That’s where the term Kurla stone comes from,” he explained.