An inside view: Mumbai's Bhau Daji Lad Museum

If you happen to visit the Bhau Daji Lad Museum over the next month, it is the Nation of the Sea that you will be entering.

If you happen to visit the Bhau Daji Lad Museum over the next month, it is the Nation of the Sea that you will be entering. Centred on life at and by the sea, three experimental films and two mixed-media works are being displayed by Mumbai-based art collaborative CAMP here. These works comprise a four-part retrospective series titled As If.

Bhau-Daji-Lad-Museum

The first two parts, shown at Kolkata and Delhi over the past two months, comprise videos of public art projects undertaken by CAMP in its 15 years. On display in Mumbai are the other two components of the As If series.

From Gulf to Gulf to Gulf is a fascinating film about the journey of ship makers and seafarers from Kutch to Sharjah, Somalia and back. “It’s interesting how boys become men and many adventures are lived,” says artist Shaina Anand of CAMP. The film follows the journey of 40 ships and is a compilation of videos, accompanied by songs, shot on mobile phones by the seafarers.

Chemould Prescott Road, meanwhile, is hosting As If Part IV, an exhibition titled Day For Night. One of the works on display is GPS Glow Positioning System, which shows a 1-km stretch in the neighbourhood of the General Post Office (GPO) at Fort lit up (see photo above). A community project, it involved people handling a light sensor machine making the lights go on and off in a circular motion.

WHAT: CAMP’s exhibitions Nation of the Sea and Day for Night

WHERE: Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Byculla (East) and Chemould Prescott Road, Fort

WHEN: February 24 to April 2 at BDL, March 9 to April 12 at Chemould