Views from above and below: bridging scenes of difference

This article focuses on the vertical visioning of the bridge as a visual icon of the global city in urban planning, specifically the Bandra-Worli sea link in Mumbai. The author contends that the sea link, launched in 2019 as a way to connect the southern part of the city with its western suburbs, participates in aerial visual significations in which views from above partake in framing of the urban metropolis as an essential aspect of the nation-state’s global modernity aspirations. By analyzing the recurrence of the sea link through a variety of visual illustrations, he suggests that views of the sea link through omniscient perspectives tether urban experiments of modernity to forms of aspirational city planning that are deemed both axiomatic and necessary for urban dreams of development. He contends that ‘reparative’ work in visual culture assumes a task beyond the exposure of ‘unequal scenes’ if it is to grapple with the material contexts of urban repair and redistribution of resources. Rather than views from above or looking from below, the article theorizes a notion of reparation through the ontology of the edge – one that offers speculations of hope beyond the neoliberal logics of infrastructural futurity.