The Lowlands project attempts to locate and assess the presence of “low lying” areas, ones that are unexplored and underexposed, in the suburb that the artist lives in. The lowlands are micro-territories and micro-activities that complement the order of the urban within which they exist. They embody characteristics and relationships that reflect the affective, cultural, economical and political states of the people who live in them. As an investigation into alternative mapping practices, the maps and data sets presented here attempt to extend and exploit the customary Cartesian order of the “base map” and the resulting static grid.

Vaibhav Bhawsar began The Lowlands as a graduation project. In retrospect, he now thinks that the lowlands are more than just static territories that exist as part of our cities. Instead, these territories can be seen as continuous displacements constantly affixed to livelihoods, land usage and its politics, private and the public, urban planning, the environment and to the macro condition of the city as a whole.

Credits: Geetha Narayanan, Ashok Sukumaran, Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, people of Yelahanka, Even Westvang and Timo Arnall for the Timeland flash application, GPS and GIS open-source community.

www.recombine.net