Veedu, 2016
16:9, HD video, color, single channel, 40:48 min
Malayalam (English subtitles)
Building a 'Veedu' (house in Malayalam) in their native place holds immense value for the strong Keralite community that live and work in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). A house is one of the largest investments they make in their lifetime, for which they diligently save and send back money home. Remittances received from the Kerala Gulf diaspora form a significant part of Kerala’s economy. The affect of this cash flow in the last decade is apparent in every neighborhood. AS As a result, besides the traditional house, such as the Nalukettu, one is also witnessing a contemporary aesthetic surfacing in the state of Kerala, influenced by the architecture from the Gulf. There is, not just a remittance of the high exchange value Gulf currency, but a remittance of aesthetics, pride, arbab-ness and more. The image of the house located in the future that the migrant will return to, gets packed with many individual nuances that emerge from years of living abroad.
Following the design process of houses to be built in Kerala, this project will be shaped by the exchanges between a UAE based client - Anesh Sasidharan, who plans to build a house in his home town Manamboor, in the district of Thiruvananthapuram, and a Kerala based architectural design and construction firm - Evens Construction Pvt.Ltd, operating from the district of Thrissur. Conversations and recordings in Malayalam, and AutoCAD screen videos will bring this film to life. The making of this project will work as an exchange between UAE and Kerala.
This project was supported by Evens Construction, Dheeraj Mohan, Nk. Balakrishnan, Gokul Kunjilikaadan, Madhu Kumbalath, Anesh Sasidharan, Jacob Philip, Arabian Radio Network - Hit (96.7fm), Mithun Ramesh, Linet Sunny, Sindhu Biju, Swapna Kurup, Prasannan Kurup, Krishnan K., Naveen Paul, Shereen Saifudeen, Boomsound Production, Ganesh K Marar.
