Ulhasnagar Matrix, 2024
LED profiles, custom electronics, handwritten text.
Ulhasnagar was a World War II military transit camp that housed lakhs of Sindhi and Punjabi Partition refugees, and that quickly developed into a full-fledged city, built over five camps, with its own special urban character. This room consists of journeys of people “via Ulhasnagar”. Patterns of why and where people moved, what they did for work and pleasure, and who followed whom, light up this matrix of movement and individual stories.
We can think of migrations as having a kernel of desire and hope, even in the worst circumstances. Details of why and where people move or stay as they seek better lives, tell us more about the world than simplified histories. Ulhasnagar became a kind of fertile refuge, a camp in which people developed social contacts and survival techniques, and cultivated dreams and desires that carried them elsewhere, kept them in Ulhasnagar, or made them choose or return to this place, later in life. A movement that didnt stop with partition but continued.
By CAMP
With original research and interviews by CAMP and Vandana Govindani, Seema Menghani and Manthan Bachani.
Calligraphy by Gurpreet Kaur.
Special thanks to Dr. Subhadra Anand, Dr Ram Jawhrani, Asha Chand, Peter Dhalwani, Manoj Lassi and the many participants in Ulhasnagar and around the world that we conversed with.
