Riding a 350cc Royal Enfield called Hari Bhari, Meenakshi J. and her partner Jey Sushil travelled to 17 States across the country in over two years for a unique travel-art project. They painted 40 murals with the help of locals from all walks of life as part of the project called Artologue.
Fuelled by a passion for travel and love for art, the couple started out by visiting acquaintances to spend time with them and leave behind art works. Their blog, filled with stories and anecdotes about their experiences, soon went viral and they started receiving invitations from complete strangers from across the world who welcomed them into their homes — to stay a while and leave behind a mural.
With over 40 invites in their mailbox, the couple and Hari Bhari set out to meet complete strangers who shared their love for creativity. Photos and stories of the artwork that they have left behind on their journey, coupled with mundane objects that have been turned into artefacts that narrate their own stories, have been turned into an artologue. They are on display at the India Habitat Centre (IHC) in an exhibition called “Art Walle Log”
The open space at the IHC has been converted into a display space, at the centre of which stands Hari Bhari, surrounded by stories gathered from urban homes, schools, orphanages, tribal hamlets, police stations and jails visited during the project.
Artologue seeks to make art reach a wider audience, with focus on creation and participation. The project started when Meenakshi, a self-taught artist and student of Art History, discovered that the world of art was covered in a veil of snobbery and did not welcome outsiders into its little clique.
Speaking about how the project started, Meenakshi said: “It was a romantic idea to travel the world and paint it in my colours, which is what I wanted my identity as an artist to be. That combined with my partner’s passion for travelling on his Bullet.”
At first, the idea was to travel to homes of friends and leave behind a painting as a thanks for their hospitality. But when the couple realised that not everybody wanted them to doodle on their walls, they started inviting people to paint their Delhi home as a trial. The invite saw people from all walks of life accept the invitation and paint for fun and showcase their creativity.
The Facebook invite group got popular and what followed were invitations by people to paint their homes. It was these invitations that laid the base for the project.
They went around the country involving people to come join them as a community project and paint. The response they received encouraged then to travel further, and engage and interact with people through art.
A teenager they met on their journey told them: “My teacher used to beat me up for drawing in my notebook. So I stopped painting completely.”
The couple gave the boy a chance to overcome his childhood trauma and painted three fish with him — a new take on Gandhiji’s three monkeys (hear no evil, speak no evil and see no evil).
The exhibition is filled with more such stories of how they got people involved in the project and helped them discover their latent talent.
The exhibition also features a blank canvas, which anyone and everyone can paint. It will be exhibited later in the month. A striking feature is how the couple have displayed souvenirs from their journey — mundane objects from people’s homes that have been turned into art objects.
The exhibition is on at the Open Space, IHC, till October 31 from 12p.m. to 7 p.m.
Published - October 09, 2015 12:00 am IST
