Evidence of Mumbai’s colonial past can be found in the city’s chawls, rickety tenement flats stacked upon each other like depressing LEGO blocks.

The structures sprung up around the city to house the poor working class, such as the laborers who toiled for the success of the East India Company through the 1800s. Chawls were typically crowded, unsanitary and structurally perilous – of course, the British merchants themselves lived in huge bungalows out of sight of such things.

Today in Mumbai you can still find chawls in poorer areas of the city. You can also find their influence in a fascinating new exhibit at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. India-born artist Amol K. Patil has altered the museum walls to look rough and weathered, mimicking the layers of old paint in chawls. Hanging throughout are paintings and strange sculptures of blobby, organic masses, made from clay cast in bronze, with hands and feet jutting out as if in protest.

Through such alien yet familiar art, the museum writes, Patil “shines light on the social and political injustices these communities face and the dignity, creativity and resourcefulness with which they continue to fight for their rights.”

Details: Show is open 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday from January 18-April 27 at 2155 Center St., Berkeley; $18 general admission, bampfa.org.