"Dam as Temple" by Padmini Unni 
  

‘Dams are the temples of modern India’ is Nehru’s famous endorsement of hydropower as the image of the dam became an aesthetic carrier of modernity. Such myth-making imbued dams with historical meaning and legitimized their construction. Now, the environmental consequence of remodeling the territory is taking its toll: dams cause severe flooding and the displacement of millions in Southern India every monsoon.

This drawing is firstly an exposition of the dam as an architectural object at the confluence of mythology and technology. Secondly, it speculates on the trend towards hydropower as the ‘sustainable solution’ and how culture constructs narratives around new technology. Now, water becomes power, profane becomes sacral, the dam becomes a temple.