HARVARD MELLON URBAN INITIATIVE 
USA, 2017

“Reconceptualizing the Urban” is the title of a four-year investigation of urban studies undertaken by The Harvard–Mellon Urban Initiative, with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. It brings together scholars and resources from across Harvard University and is directed toward establishing a vigorous, interdisciplinary, and coordinated study of urban environments in the humanities.

The Harvard–Mellon Urban Initiative is structured around ongoing city-based research projects. Each project will serve as a research ‘portal’ into specific geographies and urban issues, while opening up a broad interdisciplinary field of comparative study and research. Each city-based research portal is directed by two or more faculty from FAS, GSD, and other schools, who are taking a leadership role in directing research on the city. Each portal will include a core group of doctoral students from different programs.

Starting with four research portals — Boston, Berlin-Moscow, Istanbul, and Mumbai — the grant provides funds for student and faculty travel and field research. The intention is to integrate teaching and research at all levels across the university, and at the same time to establish a presence in the cities themselves by developing collaborative projects with local institutions, and tapping into current projects and debates. The aspiration is to create a broad intellectual community of interdisciplinary humanistic inquiry focused on the city and issues of the urban well beyond Harvard.

(extracted from http://mellonurbanism.harvard.edu)

As the four-year research is coming to an end a series of "Narrative Animations" are being developed for each "portal" in order to be exhibited in venues located in each city: Berlin - Mumbai - Istanbul - Boston. They experiment with a new form of mapping, the challenge of telling stories from a designer's lenses is approached through a series of collages that build into each other and a camera that takes us across the field of stories.

Work exhibited in Mumbai, Boston, Berlin and Istanbul
Harvard Mellon Urban Innitiative