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Rupali Gupte

Rupali Gupte is an architect, urbanist and artist based in Mumbai.  She is an Professor at the School of Environment and Architecture (SEA). Her work often crosses disciplinary boundaries and takes different forms – writings, drawings, mixed-media works, story-telling, teaching, conversations, walks, spatial interventions and curation. Much of this work involves extensive research on contemporary South Asian urbanism with a focus on architecture and the built environment; tactical practices; housing; and urban form. In 2003, she co-founded an urban research network, Collective Research Initiatives Trust (crit.org.in). In 2013, she co-founded the School of Environment and Architecture (sea.edu.in). She is also a partner at BARD studio (bardstudio.in)

Her recent works include, an architectural installation ‘Belly of the Strange’ at the MACBA Barcelona (2018), as part of a group show, ‘In the Open or in Stealth’; ‘Transactional Objects’, an art installation shown at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015), Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism (2017) and in a solo show at the Mumbai Art Room (2018); a curatorial initiative titled ‘When is Space? Conversations in Contemporary architecture at the Jawahar Kala Kendra in Jaipur, India (2018); the design of a community library R&R, in a resettlement colony in Mumbai (2017), spatial design for the 11th Shanghai Biennale (2016); Gurgaon Glossaries, a methodology for reading cities shown at the Devi Art Gallery (2012), Delhi, the Mumbai Art Room (2013) and at the Sao Paulo Architecture Biennale (2013), ‘Being Nicely Messy’ a proposition for the future of Urban Mobility in Mumbai, shown at Istanbul as part of the Audi Urban Future Initiatives (2012); Mumbai chawl drawings and Architectural fictions shown at the Jugaad Urbanism in New York (2011) and the South Asian Architecture Exhibition in Gwanju, South Korea (2016); ‘Pothole City’, exhibited at Khoj, International Artists’ Association, New Delhi (2010) and ‘Multifarious Nows’, a multimedia map of the Mill lands of Mumbai shown at Manifesta 7 (2008) and DeBalie, Amsterdam (2008).

Besides this she has been engaged in urban development projects including the Redevelopment of Mill Lands of Mumbai, Redevelopment of the Eastern Water Fronts, Mumbai; Preparation of Comprehensive Plan for Greater Mendefera Region, Eritrea; Preparation of Heritage Guidelines for Dadar Parsi/Hindu Colonies; Evaluation of the Slum Sanitation Programme, Self-Re-development of Various Slums and other Housing Colonies in Mumbai

contact: rupali.gupte@gmail.com