What if Chennai’s heritage shaped its future?: Reimagining the city through its neighbourhoods, traditions and living culture

CHENNAI: Chennai’s heritage is often discussed through its monuments, old neighbourhoods and colonial history. But the city has many more layers, from the villages that existed before modern Chennai to the food, rituals, traditions and everyday practices that continue to shape its identity.

This is what 'Madras Reimagined: Heritage, Culture, Urban Futures' hopes to explore. Organised by Heritage Inspired, Global Shapers Community Chennai and Art Kin Centre, the day-long programme will be held on August 22 at Art Kin Centre as part of Madras Day celebrations.

“We have constantly been talking about the past. I feel like this is something that we need to concentrate on too: the urban future,” says Shalini Ravikumar of Heritage Inspired, a cultural heritage organisation that works on the concept of living heritage. Shalini has been working as a conservation architect in the city for the past seven years. For her, Chennai’s history exists in many layers. “Chennai has got a lot of heritage, but it is in multiple layers. This is something we need to uncover. Chennai was a set of villages and each village had a name and its history. It also had a lot of association with the Chola kingdom. That is one aspect that we wanted to bring in with this.”

The programme also asks a larger question: what if heritage is not something we simply preserve, but something we practise? “When we talk about living heritage, we are saying that heritage is not static. Multiple things come as part of heritage, like food, rituals, traditions and iconography. As we move, heritage is around us. But are we doing something about it?” she asks.

The main aim is to get young people involved in conversations about the city and its future. “The purpose of the one-day event is to get the youth of the city involved in the process because they are the next generation,” says Shalini, who works as the Principal Strategy & Growth expert at Heritage Inspired,

The morning programme, from 9 am to 1 pm, will feature three sessions by Heritage Inspired. ‘Madras Before Madras: From Knowledge to Experience’ will look at Chennai’s deeper historical roots, layered identities and lesser-known stories. ‘Who Are We to Madras: Reimagining the Known’ will be an interactive session exploring neighbourhoods, memory, identity and belonging. Participants will also take part in a heritage mapping exercise, looking at the neighbourhoods they have lived in and how these places have changed over time.

“We have been living in different neighbourhoods. Chennai has undergone multiple periods of change, so we want to map it and bring alive the concept of what that change is,” she says. The third session, ‘Heritage Beyond Preservation: Where Do We Go From Here?’, will look at how heritage can be carried forward rather than simply preserved.

The morning will culminate in a panel discussion, ‘From Belonging to Blueprint: Neighbourhoods Shaping Chennai’, organised by Global Shapers Community Chennai. The panel will explore how neighbourhood identity and civic participation can contribute to decentralised city planning.

The evening programme, from 4 pm to 8.30 pm, will be presented by Art Kin Centre. It will feature an Oyilattam and introductory Thappattam workshop for children and adults, led by folk artiste Dheepan, followed by an improv comedy performance by the all-women ensemble Unhinged AF. For the organisers, placing a traditional folk form alongside a contemporary performance also reflects the idea of living heritage. Heritage does not remain unchanged; it continues to evolve with the people who practise it.

Beyond the event, the organisers hope the discussions will encourage Chennaiites, particularly young people, to engage more closely with their neighbourhoods and think about their role in shaping the city.