Bianca Tschaikner, Lake City, 2019

Lake City is a more than 3 meters long ink drawing which was created in Udaipur, Rajasthan, India, during spring 2017. Udaipur, also called Lake City and known as the “Venice of the East”, is considered one of the most beautiful cities of India. The city is so beautiful that it’s bollywood’s favourite wedding destination. Udaipur is a fairytale city full of georgeous palaces, a labyrinth of lakes and bridges and millions of intricate alleyways leading to mysterious temples. Lake city was created while exploring the city and directly drawn in the streets of Udaipur during many, many hours. It is a multispatial tour through the city and documents things seen, experienced, memorized and fantasized in an surreal city. The drawn panorama of the city begins with a (drawing) self portrait in an arcade of Ganghaur Ghat and then meanders around the magical lakescapes of Pichola Lake and Fateh Sagar Lake with its fantastic palaces, temples and gardens as well as the winding alleys of the old town with its many shrines, tiny tea stalls and open fires. The drawing might seem to depict an imaginary place, but it contains just as many real as fantastic elements – it blurs the line between imagination and reality and thus reproduces the feeling one gets while strolling through Udaipur. The drawing Lake City is the attempt to capture the overwhelming surreality and beauty of a city with its people, gods and animals. Palaces swimming on lakes, goddesses showing their tongues, women floating on the water riding on swans and horses disguised as baby elephants – all these are images found in Udaipur and become part of a fantastic portrait of the spirit of the city.