Art fest to celebrate Dharavi's creativity

You can see puppet shows about tuberculosis, catch a play called 'Ishqiya Dharavi Style' about youth and sexuality performed by the children of Dharavi, learn cooking from Dharavi home cooks and learn how to keep plants that remove pollutants from the air. All this and more will be available free for all at the first Alley Galli Biennale (AGB), an art festival, that begins on February 15 at venues in and around Dharavi. The theme being art for health, more than 400 Dharavi residents, including children, will put up 15 artworks in 10 events over three weeks.

Several locations in Dharavi from Ambedkar hall to Ashok Mill compound and even the streets will be filled with a blend of art and science to share information on urban health and to showcase the contribution of the people of Dharavi to Mumbai's economic and cultural life. It's a brainchild of SNEHA (Society for Nutrition, Education and Health Action), an NGO that works to improve the health of women and children living in the city's slums.

The project director Dr. Nayreen Daruwala said, "Three years ago we did 'Dekha Undekha' exhibition on a small scale and the response was great. The Dharavi Biennale is a two-year process leading to an exhibition in 2015 with the help of 400 Dharavi residents."

Daruwala said, "Even the people working here do not realise how artistic they are. They don't look at their work as art. Each and every exhibit will be about health issues in Dharavi and how their occupations and health are inter-related. It is a genuine expression of Dharavi in an artistic manner. We want to change the perception of this area as a dirty slum. You will not believe the kind of work that happens here. Everything in the ABG has been created by using recycled material as much as possible."

Latesh Poojary works with an IT company and is also directing the 'Ishqiya Dharavi Style' play with more than 30 local children aged four to 14. "The play is about how love is perceived in Dharavi and written by Paromita Vohra. It's a mob play about a boy and a girl who fall in love in school and about how their parents come to terms with it. I have never done something like this before and I have learned more from them than what I could teach. They took some time to get disciplined and take it seriously, but they are talented," he said.

The biennale will also see sculptures made by local artists. Dharavi resident Vandana Kori has made a sculpture of a pregnant woman out of injection bottles. She is a sculptor who graduated from JJ school of arts and has previously shown her work at the Kala Ghoda arts festival, which garnered much appreciation and also got her clients. "A woman's most vulnerable time is when she's pregnant and instead of being happy she becomes tense because of societal factors. Earlier we were not that dependant on medicines but today we can't function without them. A pregnant woman has to first think of having a male child, otherwise abort it; and the medicines keep coming before, during and after the pregnancy," she said. Kori was happy that the Biennale was being held at Dharavi. "People here think that art is for the elite. It is not so. Children will see what's happening and will know that something like this is possible even for them," she said.