Commuters arriving at the Tiruvanmiyur MRTS railway station since Saturday are being welcomed with wall paintings that are vibrant and thematic. Volunteers behind the effort hope it will prevent people from spitting and defacing public spaces such as railway stations.
Over 12 hours on Saturday, volunteers gave a new lease of life to 18 wall panels in the massive railway station that is used by close to 15,000 commuters every day. About 120 volunteers and students of architecture took part in a daylong effort to create the wall paintings.
“We selected walls that are on the path of the commuters from the entry point to the ticket counter and then to the flight of steps leading to the elevated platforms,” explained Nachiappan Karthikeyan, founder of Studio of Architectural Urbanism — Sparehouse, a voluntary platform to bring art and architecture to urban spaces. While the window panels were painted in different colours, the walls in the concourse were used for creating thematic paintings, with focus on the girl child, women and environment.
They act as ‘visual barriers’ — where commuters get a pleasant distraction when they enter huge public places, Mr. Karthikeyan said.
Southern Railway officials said volunteers had contributed immensely to spruce up many MRTS stations, especially Tiruvanmiyur
