Art in Public Spaces – Delhi is catching up…..

I had sought an appointment from Dr Alka Pandey, the in-charge of Visual art gallery, at IHC and I reached there. While waiting for her, was looking at works of a young boy displayed there in. I suddenly received a call from Ramji (Sri Ram Singhal), a good spiritual friend and mentor, who has let go thriving crafts exports business to devote time for spiritual pursuits. We met at my SPANDAN 2013, the dance photography exhibition and dance festival last May. Here I was at IHC to finalize on my plans for SPANDAN 2014 and I receive his call, and he said he is there at IHC in 10 minutes.

I met him and interacted while going through the works of the youngster ay VAG. And he shares about the inauguration of the Raghu Raiji’s Show at the central park, in Connaught Place and he wanted to take me for a quick dekho. We rushed in his car to CP and to my surprise, this was a photography festival in public spaces by the French Embassy. To my delight I saw large prints not only in The Central Park, but also on the buildings around the Central Park, metro station. Parliament street..

Selfies with Paris captures of Raghu Rai

The French have indeed set a few benchmarks in India in the last one year as far as public display of art goes. They did an interesting laser show along with fashion at jantar mantar, the last year. I am delighted to see these experiments as I have always been interested in art in public spaces. I had written about my experiments in an article earlier. My experiments in Open SPaces

I strongly believe that the Central Park of CP and a few such places in every city should be converted into spaces of art. Public to sensitize the population on various issues. The art has to come out of the confines of art galleries and auditoriums. Delhi has been at the fore-front of these experiments over the last decade with CP, Purana Quila, Nehru Park, Qutub, Red Fort etc turning into spaces for art.

I am eagerly looking forward to the day when the central circle of CP is devoid of any traffic, except people walking and admiring art displays and performances; The city centre becoming a hub for stimulating creativity among the gentry!