Fields Will Fly

I have always been drawn to maps. Maps are launching pads for imaginations to distant places, different people, geographies, nature, culture and color. 

A couple of years back I attended a set of three workshops titled "Maps for Change".  This lead to, via a series of learning exercises, a project of layering map of  newly opened Bangalore International Airport over the fields, villages, lakes, communities that once existed there. The result is given below.

(click on image for a full page view)

It was with sorrow and shame that I acknowledged the tragedy of individual and collective loss - as green gave way to gravel, concrete and steel - all in the name of development.

Today, as a part of my study into land acquisitions by state, creations of land banks, and industrial parks, I came across this.  I realised that development was spreading its tentacles all around the region.

(click on the image for a full page view)

Now I no longer had to work illustrating conversions of our green farmlands into a variety industrial estates, each stream lined to do a particular task - the State was already doing it for us; and, it did not balk at the horror of the image it had created. Lands being cleaved into seamless zones of industry after forcefully displacing people, appropriating water, resources, rights - all to develop  and progress.

Now, Fields will Fly...Flights will Land....