Alright so I've been sick and lazy and not venturing out into the world - instead I've been hiding at home and trying to write a poem a day for the month of April but I digress. There was this event I really wanted to check out but it coincided with Easter and so I couldn't go. I did the next best thing and asked a friend to guest blog this one for me - which is a good idea I think to have guest writers instead of me rambling on :) So cue in Jai Ranjit aka Zaiu..
Being Easter Sunday, Rochelle was being the
nice girl that she is, and spent the day doing Easter-y things with the family.
Since she couldn’t make it to the event I’m about to tell you about, she asked
me to fill in for her. I’m not kidding when I say that I clapped my hands when
I said “Yes!”
Mumbai has been a center for the arts for
as long as one can remember, and this is something Visual Disobedience is
constantly looking to reinforce. This Easter Sunday was another wonderful
example of just that, with the second in what hopefully will be a monthly
series of art markets called Arty Party.
I’m an artist, and a member of the artist
collective that is Visual Disobedience, which has been nothing but supportive
of all of us, Mumbai-based or not. I was invited to become a participating
consultant for Arty Party, and it’s something I've definitely loved doing.
This time round, we chose House Of Tales, a
gallery space in Mumbai’s art district of Kala Ghoda, and teamed up with Insia
Lacewalla’s Small Fry Co. to join forces in presenting the city with an Arty
Party full of art, food and alcohol.
The food was great, ranging from burgers
and hot dogs from Yellow Box to Cinnamon treats from Icing On Top, to the
quintessential Mumbai icon that is the gola from Gogola and lots more. The
alcohol came courtesy the wonderful folks at Indian Wine List and HipCask, with
the fresh brewed beer from Gateway.
Across the gallery from the food was the
space we earmarked for the art (all affordably priced, mind you), which
included paintings (handmade and digital) by Vikrant Shitole, Avantika Mathur
and Oorna Dutta, prints by me, Priyesh Trivedi, Harshvardhan Kadam, Sachin
Shetty, Somdutt Sarkar, Neethi Goldhawk and Saumin Patel, hand-painted lamps
and prints by Vandhana Rajan Swamy (Jellyfish), photographs by Parizad D. and Vikas
Munipalle, and enamel works by Ishita Savla, plus earrings by Ayesha Kapadia
and calendars and posters by The Doodlers.
With all the art already on display, we had
The Postcard People bringing a little bit of creative mystery to the space with
their “Postcard From A Stranger” project. You’d be greeted joyously by all
three of the lovely ladies from The Postcard People, asked to draw something on
one postcard and write your own address on another that’d already been drawn on
without seeing the design. The idea? That once the event was over, you’d get
that postcard with the unknown design in the mail, bringing a smile to your
face through the joy of a stranger. I made one, and it was an amazing feeling
to create something that I had no clue who would get.
As always, we at Visual Disobedience want
more and more people to learn about what it is that we do, and why we do it. To
this end, we make sure to include talks and demos in every edition of Arty
Party, and this time we had Ahmed Sikander do a cartooning demo, I did a
shoe-painting demo and a discussion on Street Art between Harshvardhan Kadam
(Inkbrushnme) and Sachin Shetty (Drift).
After all these arty activities had
enthralled the audience, we dove head-first into the much anticipated Pub Quiz.
With 7 teams participating in the elimination round, we saw some hilarious
answers. Once the finalists had been chosen, the battle truly began, with
Kruthika Bangera and Astha Mehta coming out on top with a miraculous jump from
0 to 130 points just in the final round, beating everyone out of the water to
win the Pub Quiz Hamper of a print by Neethi Goldhawk, a portable phone charger
and a pair of fantastic headphones. While personally I had no idea about half
the things being asked, the one question I did know the answer to, none of the
participants knew! (The question was “Who played Chewbacca in the original Star
Wars trilogy?”, and the answer is Peter Mayhew. I only mention this because
nobody heard me when I yelled it out from the other end of the room where I was
manning the cash counter.)
All in all, we are really happy with the
response our artists got, especially our brand new photographers : Parizad D.
and Vikas Munipalle. The wines and beer were fantastic, and the folks from IWL
and HipCask even more so. They more than took care of all our artists and
visitors, and made Arty Party a fantastic place to be when breaking the fast
for Lent.
We’re hoping to do an Arty Party every
month if we can, or at least as often as possible so that we get to share as
much art as we can with all of you. If you missed Arty Party this time round,
come next time and take home a piece of art with you!
