A few days ago, St+Art India Foundation and Asian Paints gave Mumbai’s Churchgate station a makeover, in the form of an iconic mural of Mahatma Gandhi. Hop into a cab and head a little further downtown, and you’ll be enveloped by their latest artistic venture, at the Sassoon Dock.
Over the next two months, South Mumbai’s oldest dock and its animated coastal bustle will be accompanied by large installations, murals, audiovisual screenings, talks and curated tours. The experiential public exhibition will include artwork from over 30 Indian and international artists that will reflect the busy context of Mumbai as well.
Akshat Nauriyal, the co-founder of St+art India Foundation and a visual artist, created portraits of various people from the co-existing communities of Sassoon Dock as part of his extensive research. These will now be used as posters to represent the people who were one of the first settlers of Mumbai. “The aim of this project is to create art hubs that contextualize the fabric of the city they are in. The Sassoon Docks are an integral part of the city, and this project reintroduces the space through narratives and stories that represent the diverse background of the space. We ultimately hope it will become an active space of interaction for all the people of Mumbai, not just the fishermen and women,” he says.
Total art domination being their goal, St+Art India plans to make creative crafts and skills accessible to the masses as a part of the St+art Mumbai 2017 Urban Art Festival. With the support of Asian Paints and the Mumbai Port Trust, the Sassoon Dock Art Project is only the beginning.
Get your cameras out; you’re going to want to remember this.
When: November 11 – December 30, 2017
Website: www.st-artindia.org
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