Art Exhibition Turns Urban Destruction Into Hope

When a garden in Bengaluru was destroyed to make way for a bus station, artist Supriyo Manna didn't let it disappear forever. He collected a cut-down tree, created a mold of it, and transformed discarded blueprint negatives into a ghostly memorial that now hangs in an Indian gallery.

Manna is one of two Bengaluru artists featured in "Architecture of Remembering," an exhibition celebrating the invisible people and places erased by urban growth. Alongside photographer Philippe Calia, he's giving voice to migrant workers, vanished gardens, and forgotten spaces at Alliance Française de Trivandrum through February 7.

Calia's work began during lockdown when he couldn't leave home to photograph. Browsing Google Earth, he discovered massive, colorful ponds near global mining sites, from Australia to Tanzania. He transformed these satellite images into cyanotypes, an old photographic technique that doesn't use cameras, creating an unexpected atlas of human impact on Earth.

His most touching piece documents families on Mumbai's Bodyguard Lane, where Gujarati migrants settled in the 1950s. "We were on the streets with cars passing us by; it felt like we were in someone's living room," Calia says of photographing families who turned a street into home.

Manna focuses on workers who build cities but can't afford to live in them. His piece "Nest of an Urban Ploceidae" recreates the informal shelters migrant laborers construct in Bengaluru. He wove white acid-free paper into thin strips forming a fragile cubicle, honoring their resilience and precarious existence.

Why This Inspires

These artists found beauty in what cities throw away. Manna stitches his paper sculptures with human hair to show how fragile our concrete dreams really are. Calia destroys and reconstructs photographs to capture the exact moment memories fade.

They're not protesting development. They're preserving the humanity within it, making sure the people who build our futures and the gardens that came before aren't forgotten. Every discarded blueprint and satellite image becomes a monument to lives that mattered.

The exhibition runs daily from 10am to 5pm, offering visitors a chance to see their changing cities through new eyes.