The Blue Barrel

By Siddheshwari Ambekar

Bombay Edition

The photographs in this series showcase water narratives from different parts of Bombay, clicked either while loitering around the city or during some of the heritage walks. It’s interesting to see how water and a water storage container act as an element and a common thread that connects all these spots together. This collection displays and thus sets a narrative of how a plastic blue barrel, as essential furniture, becomes a part of many households and workplaces across the city which acts as a medium used for storing water; then used for drinking or cleaning purposes and imageability

Bari Edition

Bari, a village in Ahmednagar district, is situated at the foothills of Sahayadri mountain ranges. Surrounded with rich and pampered farm lands and mountains, this village defines it on identity by the landscape it offers. The village is small enough for anybody to stroll around until its other end. One witnesses the blue barrel as a part of most of the households. Besides serving its core purpose of storing water and being an essential furniture, it successfully crosses the barrier of the existing social, political and economical hierarchies, thus creating uniformity in the rural fabric of the village. This series of photographs was shot during a workshop conducted by an architectural firm named ‘Studio Adda’ in January 2021.