Readers might be familiar with this canopy installation, which originally formed part of a public arts festival in New Delhi (AR March 2009). Fabricated by locals from discarded cooking oil cans, it is the brainchild of artist Sanjeev Shankar, who aims to 'interrogate the teetering ecology of the city through the prism of contemporary art'. Shimmering like a piece of oriental armour, it also embodies the spirit of jugaad, a Hindi term relating to the practice of knocking up improvised, ad hoc solutions using materials to hand. Such responses are impelled by an often astonishing-inventiveness that underscores a culture of scarcity and survival.
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