Mumbai: The Nine days’ Kala Ghoda Arts Festival - A visual treat to art lovers

By Dr. Eugene DSouza, Moodubelle
Bellevision Media Network

Mumbai, 12 February 2011: The Kala Ghoda Arts Festival is an annual festival, usually around nine days long, held in late January or early February, in the Kala Ghoda area of South Mumbai. This year the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival has been organized from 5th to 13th February.

 

The Kala Ghoda Arts festival had its origin in 1999. Since then the Festival has grown in stature and popularity, attracting visitors and participants from other parts of the country and even from abroad.

 

The Kala Ghoda Arts Festival  is one of Mumbai’s biggest art and culture festivals. Kala Ghoda (a precinct of Mumbai) houses numerous art galleries, restaurants, educational institutions, and the best of Mumbai’s heritage buildings.

 

It is interesting to know how this area came to be known as the ‘Kala Ghoda’ after which the Arts Festival has been identified.  In 1879,  a bronze statue of King Edward VII (then Prince of Wales) on his horse was installed in the centre of the place by a Jewish businessman and philanthropist, Sir David Sassoon. Over time, the statue turned black and the locals found it easier to identify the location by calling it Kala Ghoda (Black Horse). Even though the statue was removed in the 1965, the name remained.

 

The Kala Ghoda Arts Festival is organised by the Kala Ghoda Association (a non-profit organization) that states its objectives as "physically upgrading the Kala Ghoda sub-precinct and making it the Art District of Mumbai and conducted by teams handling each of the sub-festivals.
The sub-festivals feature the visual arts, dance, music, theatre, cinema, literature, lectures, seminars and workshops, heritage walks, special events for children, and a vibrant street festival. Entry to all events is free to all  and costs are met through corporate sponsorship.

 

The various venues to conduct the sub-festivals include: the Jehangir Art Gallery, Coomaraswamy Hall, The National Gallery of Modern Art, the David Sasson Library, Max Mueller Bhavan, Horniman Circle Gardens, BNHS Hall, Elphinstone College, Museum Gardens, Asiatic Society Steps, the K R Cama Institute, the M C Ghia Hall, and the street area of Rampart Row.

 

 

Rampart Row has been closed off to vehicular traffic for the duration of the festival, with the entire area becoming a street mela, with food stalls, artisans selling their creations, artists who sketch instant portraits, street art installations and the like. In recent years, the Festival has expanded beyond the Kala Ghoda crescent, with events being held in Azad Maidan and Horniman Circle as well.

 

As I was in Mumbai for few days, I  visited the Rampart Row Street during noon on Friday, 11th February 2011 when there were fewer people. This gave me an opportunity to click some pictures of various stalls and art installations without much problem. Some of the art  installations have been done by artists through their ingenious imagination using discarded electronic and metallic trash.

 

I was quite impressed with Lalit Patil’s ‘Camouflage Harvest’ which is a fabricated concept and a result of his involvement with his surroundings and his working place. This art focuses on the harshness of everyday life environment where one working man seems to be  caught between his faith, religion and political system.

 

Dominic Antony’s ‘Time Machine’ is another art piece that is being put together with various discarded electronic gadgets. Other impressive presentations included Ilyas Ahmed’s ‘To what and to whom do you open the door of your mind?’, Hetal Shukla’s ‘Ambey-sye-darr’, Mangesh Rajguru’s ‘EURO 14’, Meena and Monika Deewangan’s  ‘Spider’ which is a suspended installation. The standing horse, joker in a coffin, post boxes of different colours and sizes,etc.

 

The pavement galleries presented paintings and photographs by  different artists. The NGO Mela was on with exhibition cum sale of clothes, accessories and handicrafts by NGOs from all over India.