Resident of Dharavi Slum — Mumbai | Indian Heritage Sites Collection

Resident of Dharavi Slum — Mumbai, 2023

Acrylic on Canvas Board | 51 × 61 cm

This painting is one of the most intimate and quietly powerful works in the Indian Heritage Sites Collection. It depicts a resident of Dharavi — one of Asia's largest and most densely populated urban communities — walking through a narrow lane lined with workshops, stacked clay pots, corrugated rooftops, and the layered textures of everyday working life.

The man in the foreground meets the viewer's gaze directly — calm, unhurried, present. Behind him, a second figure carries a heavy sack on his shoulders, moving deeper into the alley. To the right, shelves of terracotta pots and vessels speak to the extraordinary craft industries that thrive within Dharavi's lanes — pottery, leather, textiles, recycling — a city within a city, alive with industry and ingenuity.

MINA's palette here is deliberately muted — greys, browns, and dusty pinks — punctuated by the warm terracotta of the pots and the flash of a yellow and blue tarpaulin overhead. The painting does not romanticise or sensationalise. It simply looks, with honesty and respect, at a place and its people.

Dharavi is not merely a slum — it is a community, a culture, and a testament to human resilience. This painting honours that.

Painted during MINA's time living and working in India, this work is part of the Indian Heritage Sites Collection — a body of contemporary acrylic paintings inspired by the landscapes, waterways, gardens, markets, and cultural environments she experienced across Kerala, Mumbai, New Delhi, and beyond.

MINA's style is characterised by expressive colour, soft atmospheric light, and a deep sensitivity to place. Her paintings do not simply document — they remember. Each work carries the mood, the movement, and the quiet poetry of the moment she encountered.

Part of the Indian Heritage Sites Collection — Landscape, Memory and Cultural Heritage.
Available for exhibition and curatorial review. For enquiries, please contact Mina's Art Space.