With a vision to showcase and promote the artistic abilities of Govandi and reclaim the legend of the neighbourhood, the Govandi Arts Festival – a five-day cultural movement – will begin on Wednesday, February 15. Govandi Arts Festival, through various performing and visual arts Govandi Arts Festival – Part of ‘India/UK Together, A Season of Culture’ – taking place in India and the UK from June 2022 to March 2023 – aims to highlight that Govandi is much more than just a ‘ghetto’.
One of the biggest projects of the ‘Season of Culture’ in western India, the Kala Utsav also marks the end of six months of mentorship in Govandi, where 45 youth were mentored by the acclaimed Mumbai-based artist’s, Additionally, to give creative expression to the “stories, aspirations and lives” of communities living in marginalized neighborhoods, the Govandi Arts Festival’s artist residency program brought together three artists from Mumbai to create relevant, site-specific art Is.
These artists – Jerry Antony, Nisha Nair Gupta, and Meera Goradia – have been working in Govandi for over three months to create art in the form of animation, crafts, ethnographic mapping. Story with local residents.
Govandi Arts Festival is part of ‘India/UK Together, A Season of Culture’ (Source: Community Design Agency)
Sandhya Naidu Janardhanan, Founder and Managing Director, Community Design Agencies, a architecture and design agency, which is leading the festival along with Lamplighter Arts CIC (UK) and Streets Reimagined (UK), said the Govandi Arts Festival is a celebration of the joy and skill that resides in marginalized urban areas. “It has a strong arts-based framework that focuses on building and showcasing the talents of spatially and culturally marginalized communities through inclusive processes.” indianexpress.com,
Janardhan shared that the festival has two broad goals. “First, to provide residents—particularly youth—with high-quality artistic mentorship and a public platform to joyfully express themselves; without diminishing their lived experiences. The second is to use art as a gateway for people outside our neighborhood to understand its human joys and complexities, to wash away the entangled stigma and decision.
For the same, the festival organized mentorship programs for over 45 youth from around Govandi across five themes for six months, an artist residency program with three artists to create and create on-site installations with the residents. to put their skills to use, and a lantern parade led by the community, she said.
For Janardhan, who has been engaging with the residents of Govandi since 2016, “the launch of an arts festival seems like a natural, exciting development that will have a long-term, positive impact” as Art And creativity is at the heart of her agency’s work in the neighborhood.
The festival organized five themed mentorship programs for over 45 youth from around Govandi for six months (source: Community Design Agency).
Artist Meera Goradia has been working with rural artisans for the last three decades and finds in it “a world of cultural and social richness as well as economic potential”. “The aim of the residency is to highlight how people who migrate from rural areas to cities bring with them memories and skills,” Goradia told indianexpress.com.
He added, “The aim of the residency was to showcase some of the work by way of designing products to be used during the Govandi Arts Festival. There will be workshops for other visitors as well as the community. We have roped in Button Masala fame Anuj Sharma planned to conduct training with her method of manufacturing garments with simple fastening through buttons. We decided to call her as many women are already engaged in post-stitching and embroidery work. We felt that This will add a new dimension to their work as they will be able to make clothes without sewing machine.Other workshops are more fun like mehndi and jewelery Make
Working in these workshops, Goradia found Govandi flourishing with all kinds of enterprises. “While some engaged in skills such as crochet and embroidery, others took up jewelery and zardozi work, being commissioned by high-end boutiques.”
Also starring is artist Nisha Nair Gupta, an urban researcher and founder of The People’s Place Project. In this residency, she is mapping out through the stories of the residents of Natwar Parekh Colony (NPC). “Along with interviews and focus group meetings, the stories are being documented by some of the women in the community. These stories will be accessible through community podcasts and will take the form of a exhibition In the arts festival. the project is called Awaz (Voices),” she told indianexpress.com.
To curate these stories, Gupta shared that she often holds focused group meetings called ‘Circle Time’. “Participated mostly by women, these sessions became a very important platform for all of us to open up about our personal challenges. His act of sharing his life with us was also an act of wanting to be heard,” she said. This, according to the artist, allowed him to see very closely the casualties of the development politics of our city.
According to artists, the Govandi Arts Festival is a good reminder to celebrate humanity in action (Source: Community Design Agency)
For the third artist, Jerry Antony, a storyteller and visual communicator, this residency has been an effort to evoke a sense of community through his everyday stories. “The aim is also to involve the community in the process and have them as co-creators of the final installation,” he said.
He described the experience of working at Govandi over the last three months as “educational” and “nostalgic”. “Initially it was a tough task involving the kids and introducing them to the concepts of animation, for whom the workshops were voluntary, but after a few sessions and a lot of games, we had a great time telling stories and chatting. With the elders, it was a lot easier than expected and I was surprised by their apologetic expression from the very first session itself,” said Antony.
The artist, who is always drawn to narratives that celebrate the subtle nuances of human interaction, shared that the time spent at Govandi has been insightful in developing a sensitivity and responsibility towards exploring these interactions. He added, “I think my understanding of people was proved wrong on many occasions and the whole journey has reinforced that childlike curiosity that makes a good filmmaker.”
Tayyaba Darvesh, a 20-year-old local resident who was asked by Nisha and her team to share her story, said it was nerve-wracking to tell them about her whole life, but she felt better after talking to them. “After the initial jitters, I wasn’t intimidated by the recording process and I really enjoyed sharing my story with him face-to-face,” he told indianexpress.com.
Darvesh said that he had initially considered the Govandi Arts Festival only to paint murals and never expected that youth from the neighborhood would get a chance to showcase his talent. “I hope people from outside will change their mind about us and our parents will also realize that their children are talented and encourage them to pursue it. I feel liberated because of the festival, because I got to meet and talk to new people, learn how to interact with them, and try new things.
According to the artists, the Govandi Arts Festival is a good reminder to celebrate humanity in action. Antony said, “I don’t think the people of Govandi are any different from people elsewhere, but they are labeled in terms that they rarely get a chance to leave.”
Urging people to shed these preconceived notions, Darvesh asked everyone to give a chance to the people of Govandi to showcase their talent. He said, ‘The work that the children of Govandi can do, probably no one else can do.’
Concluding, Janardhan said, “Jerry, Nisha and Meera are extremely talented and spontaneous artists and have worked for several months, taking inspiration from their surroundings to illuminate the neighborhood through their creations.”
The festival will be open to the public from February 15 to 19 at Natwar Parekh Colony in Govandi, featuring a variety of events including works by resident artists.
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