Public Art as a Generator of Placemaking: A Case of Dhal ni Pol, Ahmedabad

Abstract

Stephen Carr in his book- Public Spaces, idealizes the nature of public spaces stating, When the strategies of urban design are successfully implemented into public spaces, they create opportunities to participate in communal activities. “These public spaces become vessels to carry positive communal meanings” and bring people together into a cohesive environment, which is always open to them. One of the recent theories for such public spaces which address today’s reality in creating a space which everyone likes to be in is ‘Placemaking’, established by a research community at ‘Project for Public Spaces’. A paper published by ‘Americans for the Arts’ while talking about ideal public spaces states, “Places with strong public art expressions break the trend of blandness and sameness, and give communities a stronger sense of place and identity”. Thus helping the public spaces to animate into these ideal spaces for the public. The study is mainly focused on the role that public art plays to create these public spaces as described before. To study the impact, ‘Dhal ni Pol’, Ahmedabad is chosen where public art interventions in different forms have been implemented as a part of Heritage Week 2018 and 2019. These murals still exist there, for two to three years and now have become an integral part of these small pockets of public spaces around the Pol. The research here is to understand how the character of public space and peoples attitude towards it has changed since the implementation of public art. This has been done by studying the character of the place before and after the interventions and interviewing different stakeholders that are involved in the process. The initial observations from the case studies showed how the spaces remained cleaner and more active since the intervention, and how the neighbouring communities became more responsible and emergent towards these public spaces. The study also uses the theory of ‘Small Change’ by Nabeel Hamid on how a community emerges out of their present state with just small interventions which significantly changes the environment around. In future reference, the research can be applied as a guideline towards placemaking with an approach of public arts. The cases discussed in the study helps the viewer understand the potentials and recommendations for using public arts in creating better public spaces.