Art students, street artists have put together a project to brighten up the Bengaluru's Metro Stations
Bengaluru is hosting a project called Art in Transit, under which art students and established street artists have put together a project to brighten up the otherwise staid Metro stations of the city.
Call it graffiti, or call it street art - the result changes the look of what is familiar, and often dull.
On Church Street, a young woman, Sneha, stopped to click pictures on her mobile. "It really brightens up the place. We watched it for quite a while," she said.
Another woman, Sherin, said, "It is beautiful. They should do that to most of the walls. Bengaluru is coming up so well."
A third, Anushka, said, "I am not even from Bengaluru. I am from Delhi. I didn't even know it was a Metro station. It is very nice."
Speaking of the project at the Mahatma Gandhi road station, Amitabh, who teaches art at the Srishti Institute of Art for Design and Technology, said Harsh Vardhan Kadam, who conceptualized the project, is one of the leading graphic artists in the country.
"Here his idea was to respond to the space. The station is called MG Road Metro station. And the three layers lent itself nicely to Mahatma Gandhi's story of three monkeys," he said. "His vision is that when somebody passes, they smile. They have a brighter and a lighter approach to life."
Vibhav Singh, a student from the Institute, was working on a design done by his friend. "We are doing something we enjoy, and if we are also making the city beautiful, that is great," he said.
Some distance away, the metro station in the busy Majestic area, too, is getting a different look. Here again is a design that is inspired by the area itself.
Explaining the rationale, artist Sameer Kulavoor of Bombay Duck Designs, said the metro authorities wanted something site specific.
"So we took a round of the Majestic market which is a dense market that sells pretty much everything... So I tried to give that feeling with the magnet. It is symbolic of the market," he said.
Arzoo Mistry of Srishti's Art in Transit project said, "We want to open up the public sphere to art practice. Whether it is largescale murals supported by Street Art India or short performances, ephemeral art pieces. But have the artists in Bangalore feel that the city has spaces that support art."