Bengaluru: Dwelling in the past or on what could perhaps happen in the future, the present loses its significance and what is a story without its present narrative, asks The Festival of Stories, an initiative by the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, that aims to acknowledge the present reality of the city as opposed to what it used to be or will become, through art in public spaces.
"We always talk about Bengaluru in terms of nostalgia or anticipation. We call it the Garden City, the Lake City or the Dotcom City, the future digital capital. We forget to talk about it the way it is now. The story it has to tell about what it really is," says Mr Amitabh Kumar, a core member of the initiative. He is a trained artist from Baroda and an art educator at Sristi, and has been following his passion for art for almost 15 years.
In its third edition, the Festival of Stories, which is currently led by Amitabh and Arzu Mistry, has collaborated with the Neralu Tree Festival. Artists like Pooja Kaul and Yash Bhandari will be a part of the festival on the first day of Neralu. "It is essentially aimed at starting a large-scale public intervention that will continue over to other editions. Pooja will display the first part of her art installation, while Yash, who is a sculptor, will make sculptures from the fallen mahogany seeds in Cubbon Park. It is a long-term process," he says.
Though the city is ever changing and fast paced, there is a sense of monotony and routine to that too and the idea is to address that, says Kumar. "There is always this time and that time to be at a particular place. There is always this train to catch. We are always running, but in circles of monotony. We are trying to regulate that monotony that occurs in transit." Which is why the Cubbon Park Metro Station is the perfect venue to kick off the festival, he adds.
One will find stimulating conversations between themselves and the urban spaces that they inhabit at the festival, he says. "We wanted to do something that contributes towards bringing forth dialogues between people and public spaces. It was about bringing together storytellers and street theatre artists among others who would tell the story of Bengaluru the way they see it today”.
