All those who spoke about the growing absence of street art in Hyderabad can finally heave a sigh of relief and can even paint the town red, or in whatever colour they want to, because India’s most famous and largest street art festival, St+Art India is coming to town.
The art festival that brought life into New Delhi’s Lodhi Colony recently is all set to repeat its magic in Hyderabad from November 1 to 12, in association with Art@Telangana and Kalakriti Art Gallery.
Founder of St+Art India, Arjun Bahl says that local artists will get to showcase their work. “We have put out call-outs inviting artists and we’ll also be hosting a workshop when we come down to Hyderabad on July 30.
As of now we have graffiti artists Swathi and Vijay on board and we’re also looking at working with 15 artists from the city to work on a collaborative wall.
Apart from that we will also bring 6-7 Indian artists and 2-3 international artists to the city. Hyderabad is going to be our seventh edition and we were eager to work here because we see a lot of scope in the city that is famous for being one of the biggest tech hubs.”
“This project has been in the planning stage since the last six months. In Hyderabad there are only a handful of artists who create street art and that isn’t enough to put Hyderabad on the map of art. So this festival will hopefully bring out the best in the artists here,” says Prshant Lahoti, owner of Kalakriti Art Gallery.
For years now street art in Hyderabad has been looked down upon. It was considered as random paints on walls, but artists here have been struggling to change that image, hopefully it’ll happen now, believes Laxman Aelay, who is part of Art@Telangana.
“This exhibition will bring out the hidden talent in Hyderabad. Telangana artists can send in their work to the organisers and based on their portfolio they will get chosen for the
exhibition.”
