My recent work at TEDx Bangalore was inspired by Bangalore city and the stark difference between the city today and my childhood memories of the green city more than two decades ago. Below is a short video of the conflict between traffic and trees, noise and the quiet residential blocks. The chair in the middle is where the audience was invited to sit and participate in the experience.

There was little or no support from the organizers though and overall it was a huge and painful challenge to put up the work. This is the danger of putting yourself out there as a struggling artist, especially putting up a piece for free at an event like TEDx. I put up the work at 8am, so the audience got to see the work during breakfast, tea and lunch. However by 2PM some food stall started putting up their stand and food table *inside* my installation space. These kinds of things happen of course, but the best thing to do as an artist when people don't respect your time and effort is to gracefully walk away from such events.

However it was still an interesting experiment since it was the first time I was trying a piece about another city and space besides Mumbai.