How street art is changing Indian cities - one wall at a time

Street art world over and through the history has been instrumental in bringing people and cultures together. It is a medium that transcends boundaries of language, faith, culture, and distance. The first records of wall art dates back to the Stone Age, around 40,000 years ago, but the history of modern day street art is fairly new, starting sometime in the 1980s with the graffiti boom and stencil art of the West, and reaching its zenith at the turn of the century in 2000s.

What started as graffiti and underground art often showcasing dissatisfaction and voicing protest has since become a fairly organized art genre appreciated all over the world. Countries in South America, Europe, USA, and parts South East Asia have become strong centers of street art that draw local and international travelers and art lovers.

Modern street art in India is at a nascent stage today. While the public works departments and city municipalities have been painting murals on underpasses, flyovers, and boundary walls across cities, the phenomenon has yet to reach the scale of Europe or South East Asia. That said, the genre is at an all time high now with more and more organized foundations and bodies joining the street art scene.

“Street art is an integral part of the urban experience. It is also a great medium of communication,” says Giulia Ambrogi, the Creative Director of St+art India Foundation. One of the few organized platforms of street art in India, St+art India Foundation, works closely with city administrations across the country to make art accessible by bringing it to the street from the galleries. “Art can help drive social change, empower public, and can be used as a platform for spreading awareness on social and community issues.” “This,” she adds, “is over and above bringing a sense of pride to the community.”

In Delhi’s Lodhi Art District for example, the 50+ murals St+art has worked on, have brought about a sense of immense pride in the residents. The space, that finds a mention in the Lonely Planet book on Street Art documenting the art form from around the world, has gone on from being an invisible housing colony to becoming a bustling center of art. Residents take immense pride in being the center of attraction and share how their communication with the space has changed since the murals came up. In other cities like Chennai, Mumbai, Kochi, where St+art has worked to create art districts, the story is similar.

“Street art is not just about beautification,” Ambrogi tells us, “it is an extension of a space and its people.” Mumbai’s Open Air Gallery of the Everyday-Man, that celebrates the common man of Mumbai and the neighborhood of Dharavi showcases how. The walls of the neighborhood have become a center for street art with larger than life portraits of its men, women and children. The murals have given an identity to millions of faceless men women and children who have lived here for generations and yet remained invisible.

In Chennai’s Kannagi Nagar, one of the largest built resettlement sites in India, an open-air art museum draws people to the neighborhood to witness the vibrant art works including portraits of its people and its immediate environment. Street art here has worked as stimuli to the inhabitants while also opening a dialogue about the space with the larger world.

Street art in India however is not restricted to metros. Many smaller cities across India like Bhubaneswar, Thanjavur, Trichy, Varanasi, Jamshedpur, Madurai and Puducherry also boast of a bustling street art scene. The art form may not be as curated in these centers as the metros and is generally commissioned by the public works departments. In some centers it is also the initiative taken by local groups and individual artists. “Smaller centers are fast becoming the focus of street art,” informs Ambrogi. Many of these are on the smart city plan and aim at using art as a medium of communication and change; many meanwhile are looking at reviving their lost artistic identity. Whatever the intent be, it is clear that street art is reaching far and wide, and that can only be a good thing.

Big, bright, fun, quirky, even traditional, these walls like all other have a story to tell – the story of the space and its inhabitants.

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