The Stadium Project

Set of 7 works.

Size: 22inches X 30 inches each.

Acrylic paints, solidified paint marker stick and ink on 300 gsm Acidfree Canson paper.

2024.

The project was triggered by the probable demolition of the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Stadium, Ahmedabad, India. Designed by Charles Correa, it was inaugurated in the 1960s, a key time of institution building in a postindependence, Nehruvian India. Sameer Kulavoor is deeply concerned with the potential erasure of this history and feels an urgency to preserve the stadium’s cultural significance. This work responds to this looming threat of erasure, revealing how contemporary ideologies often seek to rewrite or obscure the past. Kulavoor approaches architecture not merely as a physical construct but as a living reflection of the communities and histories it holds.

Affected by the prospective loss of the stadium, first announced in 2023, Kulavoor began frequenting the site to document its spaces and forms over several months. This approach stems from his personal experience of witnessing the transformation of his own neighbourhood in Mumbai—a shift that underscored the transient nature of our surroundings and inspired him to explore the politics of space and the layered stories embedded within architecture.

A series of paintings on paper, each frame of the work retains identifiable structures from the stadium. Kulavoor’s forms become increasingly whimsical and suggestive- blending observed features like wall folds, cantilevers, and angular support columns set alongside fictional markings like metro line maps and topographical drawings. A fragmented and disjointed language developed through this process, hinting at the degeneration of the stadium where interventions such as aluminium panels or patchy fixes break the continuity of the structure.

This project was part of ‘LIMITS OF THE TOWN…’ – a solo show by Sameer Kulavoor at the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai. Curated by Tasneem Zakaria Mehta.