Looks like Yelahanka, one of the oldest townships in Karnataka, is reviving its connections with art. Being the birthplace of Kempegowda, it must have had a buoyant relationship with finer things of life in the past but the passage of time transformed it into a dusty, far off place. Yelahanka had everything from an IAF base, CRPF campus, BSF camp, an Escorts plant, a Mother Dairy and the Rail Wheel Factory, the biennial Aero India Show and of course NH7 leading to Bengaluru International Airport but art.
That has changed. Take a look around Yelahanka New Town and you will see murals, colourful shops and art spaces. Blame it on the students of Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, who have found a much more exciting canvas in their surroundings. The walls of people’s homes, parks, shop shutters and parks bear the testimony of this engagement. The chimney pipe on a wall beckoned Tanya Singh, a student of Srishti, to take it up. She sought permission from the owner and juxtaposed it with the image of snorkeler who seems to be breathing from it. “I respond to the site by taking some element from there. Another work, I have done is in a narrow lane and the house looks haunted,” says Tanya.
Another student Shravan has gone ahead and painted the map of Yelahanka on the wall of a building that belonged to Krishnam Oil Traders.
Impressed, the owner got in touch with the college to get Shravan to paint other buildings of his as well. “It has happened with quite a lot of us. Initially, they were reluctant, then curious and when finally they saw the work, they asked us to paint other walls as well. We are not vandalism, Amitabh sir has asked us to seek permission before painting and that is what we do,” adds Tanya.
Amitabh Kumar, faculty to the college, and a member of the Delhi based comics ensemble, The Pao Collective, found the synthesis between the locals and the students of Srishti missing when he came in 2013. Much of the local economy is fuelled by Srishti and its students who live on rented accommodation, eat in the local eateries, buy from the stationery shops there but the engagement needed to go further. Amitabh, through a course in public art – ‘Rabbit Hole Radicals’ and number of projects involving street art encouraged the students to go out in the streets and paint. For Nilanjan a.k.a, Bocu, the mural project at Ulsoor — which was led by Amitabh and Arzu Mistry (who is also faculty at Srishti) — was the starting point. He has painted about seven or eight murals all over Yelahanka New Town and recently got internship with a company, which impressed with his mural portfolio has asked him to paint walls of the entire office. “The way Amitabh sir organises street art project is so much fun. One of the interesting projects was ‘Kabir Lab Project’, in which we painted dohas of Kabir in public spaces,” says the fourth year student of Srishti.
Like Tanya, Bocu also responds to his surroundings and ‘Flying Hanuman’ that adorns the famous building G-159 — a student PG accommodation — is one such work. “G-159 is a PG accommodation and when they fixed a telephone tower, there were concerns about radiation. The flying Hanuman wearing a mask, was an expression of that concern,” the artist reveals.
G-159 in the SFS colony of Yelahanka is also known for other reasons besides the ones pertaining to phone tower. The PG accommodation belonging to Nihaal Faizal and two other students from SIADT is a unique art space for students to not just showcase their work but also ideate and create. The living room in his apartment has seen interactive sound installations, site-specific performances, exhibition of photographs and prints. “In Srishti, you can only do so much plus there are no studios there so where do you work? So, an artist can come and work or if someone wants to have a show, they can do that as well. There are no galleries in the area,” says Nihaal, a second year student of Srishti.
In August this year, Swiss artist Linda Stauffer, set up “We Will Figure it Out” which operates out of a garage in Yelahanka.
“During my last semester, on an exchange programme at Srishti, I observed a vast potential to tap into art around the local community. I also noted a need for more spaces that could act as alternatives to the norms of an institution. During my second semester, I have moved into a house with four other artists. This large house presented many spaces that were unused, in particular the garage which I decided to develop as a gallery space and community centre. My friend Corina Heinrich, an artist from Zurich, came for a two month artist-in-residency program, where she helped us to set up our space and ended her stay with the exhibition ‘Templates for Everyone’ together with Nihaal Faizal,” says Linda.
We spot a fish shop in the market with a picturesque fishing village painted all over it. But that’s not done by Srishti students, Amitabh clarifies. The colours of their paint have surely rubbed off on the locals.
Rabbit Hole Radicals
Another effort aimed at bridging the gap between Srishti students and the locals is a 12 page zine called ‘The Rabbit Hole Radicals’ which is distributed to some 5000 residents of the area.
Art attack
Bocu recalls an incident where a woman on seeing him paint a wall in Yelahanka, asked, ‘how you can paint like this?’ Next day when she came again, she revealed that someone had painted on the wall of her house but she didn’t like the work. She wanted a better mural to adorn her wall.”
Developing it as an art hub
Though Nihaal is upbeat about the growth of art in Yelahanka and has himself contributed to it, he doubts its sustenance. “There have been break-ins. Someone entered the building, broke our systems, destroyed our hard drives. And then the police harasses the students some times. I feel little vulnerable. I want to move out of this place. For it to develop as an art hub, students should be made to feel safe.”
