Air: an invisible gaseous substance surrounding the earth, a mixture mainly of oxygen and nitrogen, necessary for breathing Monsoon [+ other] Airs is the first of three annual symposia convened by Monsoon Assemblages. Each of the symposiums will be structured around one of the monsoon’s material elements: Monsoon Airs, Monsoon Waters and Monsoon Grounds. This […]
The Monsoon [+ other] Airs Assembly is the first of three annual symposia convened by Monsoon Assemblages. This year’s assembly will interrogate questions of monsoon atmospheres, politics and media. The event includes an evening keynote lecture (Thursday 20th April) followed by a one-day long symposium (Friday 21st April). It will be accompanied by an exhibition […]
DS18 is the MArch design studio at the University of Westminster taught by Lindsay Bremner and Roberto Bottazzi associated with Monsoon Assemblages for the next three years. This year the studio is working on Chennai. In the first brief of this studio, students were asked to research the complex and architecturally fertile phenomenon of monsoon […]
Pushpa Arabindoo’s brilliant paper on the 2015 Chennai floods has just been published. “Recognising the need for a more robust (post-) disaster discussion, this paper offers an anatomy of the floods that begs a broader rethink of 21st-century urban disasters and argues that the current discourse offered by the social science of disaster is insufficient […]
Southern reaches of the Pallikaranai Marsh. Photograph: Beth Cullen In early December we made our first visit to Chennai with students from DS18, Master of Architecture design studio. Our stay lasted just over two weeks during which we fully immersed ourselves in the city. The majority of the trip was focused on a week-long Water […]
From this Thursday onwards, the MONASS research team will be expanded by the arrival of its two grant funded PhD fellowship holders, Harshavardhan Bhat and Anthony Powis. Harshavardhan has a background in research and political practice, having previously worked on strategic consulting projects in South India and Rwanda. He’s an alumnus of the 2015/16 postgraduate […]
Infrastructural urbanism: assembling the techno-political city | Niranjana Ramesh In the third Monsoon Assemblages seminar, Niranjana Ramesh, PhD candidate at the department of Geography of UCL, London, presented parts of her on-going research comparing desalination plants, and their underpinning policies, in Chennai, India, and London, UK. Of her thesis, titled “Techno-politics of urban water: the case […]
In October 2016, I interviewed Dr Andrew Turner, MONASS Advisory Board member, the the UK’s leading monsoon scientist based in the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading. The following is a transcript of part of our interview: LB: Tell me a little about your work on the monsoon here in the UK, Andrew. […]
Between 04 and 09 December 2016, the Monsoon Assemblages Team (Lindsay Bremner, Beth Cullen, Michele Vianello and PhD candidate Harshavardhan Bhat) will conduct a one week long ‘Water WalkShop’ at the School of Architecture and Planning at Anna University in Chennai. This will be attended by students from the School of Architecture and Planning at […]
This conference on peri-urban dynamics at IIT Madras on 27-28 January 2017 examined a number of themes such as urbanisation, peri urban ecosystems, water and its uses, political frameworks and governance. Download the conference flyer for more details: igcs-conference-on-peri-urban-development. Lindsay Bremner and Beth Cullen presented a poster on Monsoon Assemblages at the conference.