A tree for every one in Bangalore

Bangalore can hardly call itself the Garden City anymore, and it loses claim to this tag with each passing day as more and more trees are felled to make way for broader roads and infrastructure projects. Speaking up on behalf of the hundreds of nameless, voiceless trees of Bangalore is a new initiative ‘Around a Tree’, an urban tree festival to revive a love for trees and raise awareness of the role they play in the lives of the city’s inhabitants.

A brainchild of two organisations, Maraa and 1 Shanthi Road, this participatory festival will involve local artist, academic and activist groups, art and media forums as well as families and communities of children. While Maraa is a media collaborative, 1 Shanthi Road provides a platform to independent artists. They have joined forces to create a unique festival that will see ordinary citizens, artists and activists pitching in with ideas and initiatives to generate greater awareness about the plight of urban trees.

The programme for the festival includes a travelling poster exhibition, public art installations and video art screening. “Since the city has seen an outpouring of concerned citizens’ activity around tree felling and the loss of green in the city, it made sense to call for creative posters from various quarters, from artists to activists, from adults to children,” says Deepak Srinivasan of Maraa. He says the response to this has been overwhelming. A set of curated posters will travel the city in a mobile van and be hoisted at different public places such as street corners and public parks, which will work as instant open gallery spaces, says Maraa.

“In the wake of the changing landscape of Bangalore, we have seen an unprecedented depletion of tree cover. This is the price we pay for development and unorganized planning,” says art historian Suresh Jayaram of 1 Shanthi Road while ruing the fact that the government has not made any efforts to include citizens in a drive to transplant trees or plant new ones.

‘Around a Tree’ will flag off on June 26 with the inauguration of the mobile poster gallery and will go on till July 4. Apart from the art installation and film screening, a series of talks have also been organised on the evening of July 27 at 1Shanthi Road on historic perspectives of greening of the greater Bangalore region, indigenous tree species of this region and the conflict between trees and traffic decisions in the modern metropolis.

Representatives of environment group Hasiru Usiru will present the talks. On the evening of July 3, Cubbon Park Bandstand will witness a performance of Kabir’s soul-stirring rhymes on the natural world. The festival will be wrapped up on July 4 with a musical jamming session by several city bands at Jaaga (Rhenius St, Langford Gardens).