This exhibition has been fabricated and installed by architecture, art and planning students, aiming to bring forward multi-faceted discussions on the future of cars, sustainable design, and the relationship between the “developed world” and the “global south.” Exhibit features the suspended components of the Tata Nano, known as the world’s cheapest car, introduced by Tata Industries to replace the notorious, dangerous and polluting moto scooters. Sorted by their price and weight, the Nano components, along with two inflatable sculptures representing the car’s monthly and yearly CO2 emissions by volume, a series of videos representing 1km of distance travelled by various modes of transport in India, and a visual representation of a consumption capacity of the Indian lower middle class, are held in suspension by 27 wooden sitar tuning pegs in museum white box gallery.

In retrospect, failure of the Nano to achieve its lofty goals (production was suspended in 2018) lies exactly in the cultural realm. Despite an awesome feat of re-engineering every component of an automobile to achieve the low price and make the car affordable for the masses in India, it was the stigma of “poor people’s car” that brought about the failure of this valiant project.