The second edition of the St+art Urban Art Festival’s Mumbai chapter aims to create an experiential space to showcase art in the city with its open galleries
If you’ve been to Churchgate station recently, you cannot have missed the gigantic mural of Mahatma Gandhi on the facade of the building. The artwork by Brazilian street artist, Eduardo Kobra, is courtesy the St+art Urban Art Festival, which returns to the city for the second time this year, after debuting in 2014. Co-founder of St+art India Foundation and festival director, Arjun Bahal, tells us, “The idea is to create an experiential space to showcase art. There are not too many art galleries in India and museums do not have a robust programming. Also, if you’re not in the art scene, you can’t really enter these spaces. We wanted to make things more democratic and bring art to the people.”
THE PROGRAMME
Post the makeover of Churchgate station building in October, the fest will include experiential programmes at Sassoon Dock, Mahim East, and Jindal Mansion. “At Sassoon Dock, we are using local narrative that will have a number of concepts and dialogues with the fishermen community,” Arjun says. The 20,000 square feet space will have artworks, created with motifs like fishing nets, baskets, clothes that kolis wear, and waste materials. The fest also includes an art district in Mahim East where artists and city planners will create a walk-through art gallery. November 11 to December 10 will be the Inside Out Project — a portrait-based programme by the French artist JR. “He has shot images of the kolis, which will be blown up into large portraits. You can see them as you walk into the exhibition,” Arjun states. December 1-15 will see designer Manish Arora’s installation piece on Jindal Mansion. “Manish does very vibrant, colourful, and fun stuff. The installation will be a collage made from various kinds of textiles,” says Arjun.
THE EVOLUTION
This is the seventh outing of the festival, which was also held in Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad earlier. The foundation has been working on smaller projects that are a platform to give alternate revenue stream to people and make old and dying art forms like hand-painting, Madhubani, etc contemporary. Going forward, the foundation plans to become a research platform, “Where we can recommend and work with the government to introduce art policy in India,” Arjun says. St+art Urban Art Festival will soon be going to Telangana, Goa, Chandigarh, and Kolkata, too.
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