For two days, the Cubbon Park metro station will be transformed into a performance arena, where artists and other citizens will come together to collectively share stories, memories, and their wish for Bengaluru.
The 8th edition of Festival of Stories by Art in Transit, a project by Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, in collaboration with Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd. (BMRCL), will see multiple installations, workshops, and interactive sessions being held at the station on September 22 and 23.
“This time, we are also collaborating with artists from the U.S. as part of Bengaluru–San Francisco Sister City initiative. The festival is called ‘Questions to Cities’ and we are using it as an opportunity to ask Bengaluru if the city wants to be like San Francisco or Singapore or itself, and what it means to be in a dialogue and develop a relationship with other cities, and not just have a cut-paste identity,” said Arzu Mistry, project lead, Art in Transit.
Artworks, including murals, painting and installations, will be put up, virtual reality experience, talks, and workshops will be held as part of the festival. “Data and technology and old stories of Bengaluru are the two predominant themes of the festival,” Ms. Mistry said.
David Kuelz and Nicky Tsianti, artists from Kaimera Production in the U.S., will be setting up an interactive multimedia installation that will allow audience to examine the impact of their online fingerprint and question the ethics of data privacy.
“The project is called Data Print is part visual installation and part performance. Actors will take on the role of a employee of fictional tech startp and will interact with the audience. Also, people will get a chance to feed in data on tablets provided and see how it is projected in stimulation built by the team. Audience can see how their data interacts with the environment,” said Mr. Kuelz.
The festival will also showcase, for the first time, the prototype of an Adobe-funded project to routes that are non-polluted and silent. Sai Krishna Mulpuru, faculty at Sristhi, has been working on the project. “We have been collecting data related to the environment within Cubbon Park and around the metro station. The park is divided into polluted and non-polluted areas. The data will be fed into a virtual reality headset. People can choose the location they want to go to. For example, if one choose Cubbon Park metro station on the map, people will get a 360 degree view of the place and also data related to weather and pollution,” said Mr. Mulpuru. Apart from an installation within the station, a cart will do the rounds of the park and people can pick the headset and experience the areas.
Promoting Kannada
Kannada language and culture will also get ample space during the festival. One of the workshops will be on typography.
Mamta Sagar, Kannada poet and faculty, Creative Writing, will be curating three projects along with her students. Under the People-Place project, old black and white photographs of the city will be displayed. Another project called Market Memories will bring out the stories of vendors in city markets through poetry. “Three Kannada poets Siddhartha, Chand Pasha and Naman have visited the markets and collected stories from there. They will be presenting the stories in form of Kathana Kavanagalu, which is a forgotten style of poetry in Kannada,” Ms. Sagar said.
Apart from this, a group of young poets will be presenting contemporary vachanas on socially and politically relevant issues. “Against the backdrop of a dense forest, these poets will demand a hierarchy-less, equal society for all through their poem,” she said.
Published - September 17, 2018 01:27 am IST
