URBAN HOURS-A Public Art Project at ROSE GARDEN
A gate opens in the middle of the concretejungle and unlocks a vision from another age. A palace stands, lost, almostforgotten, its white walls contrasting with a green lawn ending on the ghat.“Rose Garden” is its name, but the splendor is all past. The first shock ofdiscovery slowly fades away, and the visitor raises its head. All around theground of the palace are the dull, faceless buildings so ubiquitous in Dhaka,coated in greyish concrete with black security bars protecting againstimaginary intruders. It does not take too much imagination to understand howthe place makes for a perfect illustration of the city's contradictions, andwhy it was chosen by the artists of “Urban Hours” to present their works.
The twenty or so artists behind “Urban Hours”represent a generation of Bangladeshis who were born en masse in cities.There is no remote village for them to take quarters when gargantuan Dhakabecomes too stressful; no regional particularism to take pride in and to helpthem shape their identity. They are city-kids, another number in the bunch,with the same hopes and fears as their peers. The “urban” they refer to is thegreat equalizer, an anonymous space where everyone is welcome and undesirableat once. Their city is a place of alienation: the daily war of egos creates acrushing chaos, and fairytale palaces are indeed left to greedy developers. Butit is also a site of emancipation, where the laws of religion and the fathers'customs slowly vanish. Shaping a new sense of collective destiny becomes thetask of these newly emancipated individuals.
The videos, site-specific installations orperformances proposed by “Urban Hours” all revolve around the same analysis:urban “development” – a term itself charged with contradiction – has gone outof control. The artists propose different approaches on the subject, and theirviews might sometimes differ. But in the end, they shout the same pressingquestion. How shall we reclaim the city?
- Hadrien Diez
