Hyderabad is set to host a multi-location street art festival, the kind it has never seen before.
“From November 1 to 12, St-artindia, art@telangana, and Kalakriti Art Gallery are collaborating to host a street art festival where artists from across the world and the State will choose and execute their work at select locations,” said B.V. Papa Rao, trustee of art@telangana.
St-artindia is known for executing massive street art projects, ranging from the 120-ft by 150-ft mural of Dadasaheb Phalke in Mumbai, a 6,080 sq. ft. mural of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in Delhi, to a range of visually mammoth street paintings. “We don’t need a gallery. The street is our gallery,” said Hanif Kureshi of St-artindia at an interactive session with city-based artists, laying out his vision for the street art experiment. On the sidelines of the art festival, a four-day Telangana Kala Mela is planned at People’s Plaza, besides a clutch of outdoor workshops.
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“Street art can invigorate the art scene and brings art to the masses. We are doing this because we love the city and we wanted to bring something world class. We have shortlisted locations and did a recce of a few places, but the final call will be taken by St-artindia,” said Prshant Lahoti of Kalakriti, adding that this private-public partnership is the way forward. “There are two foreign artists and four national artists, and we have asked them to pick about 12 artists from Telangana to execute the project. But the choice will be theirs,” said Mr. Rao.