El Dorado: Vikram Divecha

In December 2017, Divecha chanced upon a projectionist’s block calendar diary among the refuse of the recently decommissioned El Dorado Cinema in Abu Dhabi. First opened in the 1990s on the capital’s Electra Street, the El Dorado in its later years catered to South Asian audiences. From the banal events noted in the diary, Divecha conjured a profound reflection on alienation, exclusion, and remembrance, blurring fact and fiction, for the genesis of an invisible projectionist, named simply ‘K.’ 

Demolished cinemas like the El Dorado have seen a surge of nostalgia, as residents bemoan the disappearance of architectural and cultural heritage. In El Dorado, Divecha attempts to archive not a place, but a life.