I was so excited by the prospect of offering another "Bangalore Sites" post today. I was tasked with scouting out two spaces - the Parade Grounds and Freedom Park - for an upcoming event. As Freedom Park has long been on my list of B'lore places to visit, this was going to be a good outing, leading to a great post.
Opened in 2008 on the grounds of the old central jail, Freedom Park was inspired, so it is said, by Hyde Park in London. Hyde Park, in this instance, being the paradigmatic space of democracy as a space of public debate and public protest. In a powerful instance of building on its own history, of living its current democratic freedom through its history of colonial and post-colonial oppression, the watchtower and three barracks remain from the central jail which was used not only in the colonial period to silence nationalist agitators but also during the Emergency to silence political opponents. On this site is now a space for protest and debate, a theater stage on which to speculate the social world that is and might be, and an art garden to open the political to what it has left behind and what it might yet come to member and re-member. Whatever democracy can be practiced today will, in other words, be practiced in the open wounds of colonial and political tragedy.
Aside from the weight of its symbolic geography, the site itself seems to be a magnificent moment of architecture and design, wonderfully integrating the given of imprisonment with the opening of democracy, structured and organized to allow for some wild creativity.
But that is only a guess, because apparently in India freedom is only open from 4-8pm on weekdays.
Opened in 2008 on the grounds of the old central jail, Freedom Park was inspired, so it is said, by Hyde Park in London. Hyde Park, in this instance, being the paradigmatic space of democracy as a space of public debate and public protest. In a powerful instance of building on its own history, of living its current democratic freedom through its history of colonial and post-colonial oppression, the watchtower and three barracks remain from the central jail which was used not only in the colonial period to silence nationalist agitators but also during the Emergency to silence political opponents. On this site is now a space for protest and debate, a theater stage on which to speculate the social world that is and might be, and an art garden to open the political to what it has left behind and what it might yet come to member and re-member. Whatever democracy can be practiced today will, in other words, be practiced in the open wounds of colonial and political tragedy.
Aside from the weight of its symbolic geography, the site itself seems to be a magnificent moment of architecture and design, wonderfully integrating the given of imprisonment with the opening of democracy, structured and organized to allow for some wild creativity.
But that is only a guess, because apparently in India freedom is only open from 4-8pm on weekdays.
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