Jugaad, a hindi term, which refers to attaining any objective with the available resources at hand, became the driving force for a suspended shade canopy fabricated from discarded cooking oil cans for a public art festival in India. Over a period of three months, discarded oil cans were used as a vehicle to explore ideas of sustainability, recycling and re-purposing with 90 residents from Rajokri, an urban village in New Delhi. Using grass root ingenuity, Jugaad reincarnated 945 such cans into a free-standing shade canopy spread over 70 square metres.The canopy was first exhibited at 48°C public art festival held in New Delhi from 12th to 21st December 2008 and was supported by khoj, the Goethe Institute and the German Technical Cooperation.

Critically acclaimed in numerous publications globally and celebrated as a benchmark for participatory methods in design, jugaad has recently been published in 'Together Alone: Architecture and Collaboration' by Petra Havelska(Artist Books, 2011) and 'Limited Language: rewriting design: responding to a feedback culture' by Colin Davies and Monika Parrinder(Birkhauser Architecture, 2009). Jugaad was also selected for the Architectural Review Emerging Architecture awards in London in 2010 and was exhibited at the Centre for Architecture in New York in 2011 and Royal Institute of British Architects in London in 2010. Please click here for presentation and talk.

For artist statement please click here

For comments from curator please click here