Art takes to Mumbai's streets

A refreshingly different one month long art initiative is changing the way we look at our streets and neighbourhoods

St+art Mumbai, an urban art festival has been wowing the city with street art and will be continuing to do so all this month. After its successful first edition in Delhi, the St+art India foundation brought this festival to Mumbai with the hope of educating and creating awareness while providing a platform to aspiring artists.

As a part of the festival, Italian artist Gomez shows one of the kids at Dharavi a few ticks with the paint spray can. Pic/Pradeep Dhivar.

Already, several spots across the city have begun to boast of street art in all its vibrant hues. With the same gusto, Tuesday witnessed a workshop for kids in Dharavi where artists Seikon from Poland, Tona from Germany and Daan Botlek from The Netherlands taught techniques of street art to 25 youngsters aged between 8 to 15 years. The collaboration between artists and children resulted in a collective artwork on a public toilet wall in Dharavi that aroused a sense of active participation and community living. European Union National Institutes for Culture (EUNIC) and Sneha Foundation made this workshop possible with its support of the St+art India Foundation.

The curator of the Dharavi chapter, Giulia Ambrogi shares that the experience of art should be straightforward and capable of fostering individual and social growth. “One of the main purposes of St+art India Foundation is to stimulate the creativity of young people and their civic consciousness in interaction with the urban context,” she asserts.

Arjun Bahl, festival director, St+art Foundation, adds, “As a foundation, we are keen to work with low income settlements to provide a platform to enhance their skill sets in the hope of channelising their energy towards something more productive. This will not only help them but also improve urban aesthetics, making our streets more positive.”

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