Chennai Slum Becomes Walk-in Art Gallery As Artists Cover All Walls With Huge Murals

For the past two years, Chennai¡¯s Kannagi Nagar, home to 80,000 people, has been abuzz with activity. Why? Because a group of artists have taken it upon themselves to facelift the area - with cans of paint, brushes and ideas to create symbolic pieces of art.

Dubbed as city¡¯s first ¡®art district¡¯, the facades and walls in the settlement are now covered with life-size boldly coloured murals each with a lesson to learn.

Citizen Matters

The project is spearheaded by St+art India Foundation, co-founded by Italian contemporary art curator Giulia Ambrogi, based on an invitation from Dr Alby John Varghese, the Regional Deputy Commissioner (South) of Greater Chennai Corporation. The project features the works of 15 artists who also showcased their artworks and murals, and hosted workshops and curated tours.

Their aim

One of the aims of the project is to change perceptions about Kannagi Nagar. By creating an open-air art museum of sorts, St+art hopes to draw people to visit the locality. After studying the locality, the theme that evolved was that of people and the environment, and not just from the ecological perspective. ¡°It's one of the most relevant themes across the world, about being displaced, about how your environment is fundamental to your identity and how when it changes, your life changes accordingly.¡±

Citizen Matters

One of India¡¯s largest resettlements based off the OMR road, the area includes people rehabilitated from three river beds ¡ª Cooum, Adyar and the Buckingham Canal ¡ª as well as a few slums in the city.

The kickstart

It began when Chennai Corporation invited St+art India to drive this project in Kannagi Nagar. St+art India is a not-for-profit organisation founded in 2014 with the intent of making art more democratic and for all.

Bronte Naylor

St-art India in association with Asian Paints has completed many murals in Kannagi Nagar which are now open for people to view. These murals will be an ongoing series of artwork that people can relate to and communicate with.

@kashmira_sarode

Giulia Ambrogi, curator and co-founder of St-art India says, ¡°It¡¯ s been a very interesting story with many of our artists who choose to come here. One artist has been inspired by the colours painted on some houses he saw in Tiruvannamalai. He took inspiration from those and translated it into the pastel shades on the first mural that you see as you walk in.¡±

Their vision

Guilia says, ¡°A similar project was completed in the Lodhi art district, the number of people visiting it after three years is high. The point is to create fertile ground for art, for which we need to spend time. We have been in Kannagi Nagar since December, getting familiar with the area and speaking to the local leaders and the community before we started painting the murals.¡±

Instagram/ A-kill

20-year-old Praveen who lives in Kannagi Nagar says that he does not see anything more to the walls than the colours. "But," he adds, pointing to a facade with murals featuring kolam and goli soda bottles, "This wall, for instance, was painted by trans women and that was good to see. We saw that they involved children from the area for one of the walls."

The murals

Protectors and Providers

Sisters¡¯ by A-kill

His piece for the Kannagi Art District features two smiling sisters on a huge facade. This mural is dedicated to the core spirit of Kannagi Nagar which A-kill thought was characterized by its young people.

Protectors and Providers¡¯ by Osheen Siva

Drawing inspiration from the livelihoods of women in the fisherfolk communities of Chennai, Osheen depicts a strong lady character wearing a traditional Sari, holding a bowl of water encapsulating an entire universe within. The words ¡®Protectors¡¯ (top) and ¡®Providers¡¯ (bottom) written in a Tamil typeface frame her piece.