The Kala Ghoda Arts Festival has come to an end after its continuous run, or shall we say, gallop, from the 25th December to the 2nd of February. This year’s theme for the festival was ‘Silver’. As a grand celebration of heritage, culture, and diversity, the festival has paved its way to its attire of multiculturalism in its exposure of art across different mediums and media.

The silver lining of the arts festival was quite literally an exhibition called Silver Lining.

The waste of technological advancements and industrialisation to be viewed as products of transformation instead of littered by-products is portrayed here. Basically, the portrayal of the potential of inevitable “scrap” into a creation that can be transformed from scratch is the intention. This installation viewed from any other angle, looks as though it’s a heap of trash hanging from the headboard. But from the angle of the photograph above, it is an e-horse, an execution of art and intention.

The festival was instilled with a herd of horses (multiple horse installations) each of which represented an idea, a mythological descent from which horses are identified with, or a presentation of a concept. The walkthrough was filled with larger than life horses, with neigh way of escaping a single one. In many of the installations, we met with the artist, and they spoke of the origin of their art.

The surroundings of the installation were lined with exhibitions and handicrafts with the festival as their selling point. And the tags above their individual huts covered several states, embedding the unique necessities of multiculturalism throughout India. When approached by eager customers, they were met with excitement, to not only sell their products, but to inspire their dedication to their art.

Another grand exposure at the festival was the heritage walks; the Afghan Church was a personal favourite of the team. The church is guarded by a little hut that locks the gate during after-hours. The inside of the church is enriched with carvings and engraved history. The glass paintings were a testament to the church’s claim, and the names of causalities in our history, safely rung by foreign bells in the bell tower of the church, remarked on our post-colonial history. And with its gothic beauty echoed, Hozier’s “Take me to Church”.

The choice of cinemas for this year was crucial to include works of art from different regions of the country, with each of them taking the viewer on a journey to the culture and identity of the portrayals of the movies. The cinema halls indulged in fiction, documentaries, and animation features. It gave us the opportunity to refine our understanding of Indian cinema and the gorgeous works of art we had been missing out on. From Village Rockstars 2 by Rima Das, an Assamese film to Mic Drop by Kallol Mukherjee, a short documentary presenting the struggles of an artist covering regional and language barriers, the range of films was wonderfully intense.

The radiance of literature and the opportunity to expand understanding through intimate sessions and discussions with writers was thoroughly covered in the festival. There’s a Bluebird in My Heart, a performance of poetry at Kitab Khana is just one of the many examples of an ensured space for reigning in interpretive knowledge of the poetry that we live and the books that we read. The expansive talks have not limited themselves in their exclusivity of genres and gender in Murder, She Wrote (all I could think of was the song, “Murder, She Wrote”, I highly recommend listening to this song) and Pride and Pronouns: Modern Queer Narratives. Literature follows footprints, but it’s “Written on the Tongue”. The festival was not devoid of music, the captivating fusion of music in all of its forms was presented and infused in the crowd work as audiences swayed and danced.

The road to this extravagant festival is shared and explored by curious minds. The festival savoured the cultural diversity of regions represented through their art and provided them with platforms free of cost. The sanctity of art in all worldly products should not be wasted, be it a conversation, or an attempt at creation, it is an art form, a replica or imitation of your perceptive mind. 

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