City of Desires

City of Desires documents the artist’s first drawing/erasure performance when she worked in situ, making charcoal wall drawings in Bombay (now Mumbai). Malani transformed Gallery Chemould into an ephemeral open studio and site for dialogue for ten days in 1992. The images reference the neglect and vandalism of nineteenth-century Nathdwara fresco paintings in the temples of Rajasthan in western India. City of Desires exists as a gesture of resistance to extremism and oppression. It honours beauty and is a reminder of the power of memory in safeguarding the fugitive and ephemeral. The documentary was written and directed by Nalini Malani.