Delhi Explores Itself as a Living Museum in Second Edition of Art and Heritage Festival
New Delhi: The national capital is once again transforming into a vibrant canvas of learning and cultural exploration with the second edition of DAG’s ‘The City as a Museum’ art and heritage festival. This year’s festival, which commenced on September 12 and will run until September 25, delves into Delhi’s rich tapestry of histories, examining the interconnectedness of education and art within the city. The event utilizes a diverse range of venues, from art schools and academies to museums, libraries, and neighborhoods, to showcase Delhi as a dynamic landscape of knowledge production and cultural shaping.
The festival aims to re-examine Delhi’s layered past by incorporating a wide array of activities, including exhibitions, talks, heritage walks, workshops, and performances. These events are strategically located across the city’s extensive cultural map and its numerous interconnected sites, offering multiple perspectives on how the city’s spaces and institutions influence its communities, identities, and overall culture.
DAG’s Vision for ‘The City as a Museum’
Ashish Anand, Managing Director and CEO of DAG, highlighted the festival’s focus on Delhi’s unique histories of learning and knowledge creation. “With this second edition in Delhi, we turn to the city’s own remarkable histories of learning and knowledge-making, revisiting historic institutions, modern centres of learning, libraries, community spaces, and the streets themselves,” Anand stated. He further expressed enthusiasm for continuing the dialogue with Delhi’s residents, posing the perpetual question: “where does learning truly happen, and who gets to shape the knowledge a city holds of itself?” This iteration of the festival builds upon the success of its first edition in Delhi and previous iterations in Kolkata and Mumbai, expanding the model to encompass a broader exploration of urban experience.
The festival’s programming is designed to be immersive and engaging, inviting participants to reconsider their relationship with the city. By activating various urban spaces, ‘The City as a Museum’ seeks to present the city not as a static repository of history, but as a living, breathing entity where knowledge and culture are constantly evolving.
Key Exhibitions and Events Unfolding Across the Capital
Among the notable highlights of this edition is the exhibition “Vision and Landscape: Aquatints of India by Thomas Daniell and William Daniell” hosted at Bikaner House. This exhibition features a rare and complete collection of 142 aquatint prints, collectively known as “Oriental Scenery.” These prints represent a significant artistic endeavor by English artists to depict Indian architecture and landscapes during their extensive travels across the country between 1786 and 1793. Curated by Giles Tillotson, SVP of DAG, the exhibition offers a visual journey through the India observed by the Daniells, spanning from Calcutta and the Gangetic plain to Delhi and the Garhwal hills.
Another significant component of the festival includes a focus on Delhi’s printmaking legacy. An art exhibition showcasing prints by artists from a collective will be displayed at the College of Art, Delhi, from September 13 to 15. This event aims to shed light on the development and practice of printmaking as an art form in the capital, particularly during a period when numerous artists were drawn to Delhi for commissions and creative experimentation.
The festival also encompasses a walkthrough of the modern art collection at Nizammuddin’s Ghalib Academy on September 15. This event will feature paintings by renowned artists such as M.F. Hussain and Satish Gujral, created in response to Ghalib’s poetry. The walkthrough, guided by writer Kamayani Sharma and Academy secretary Aqil Ahmad, will provide insights into the artistic interpretations of the poet’s work, originally commissioned by the academy’s first president, Hakeem Abdul Hameed.
Furthermore, the festival is extending its reach to include community spaces and historical sites, such as the Gurdwara Bangla Sahib and the lanes of Jamia Nagar, alongside DAG’s gallery at Janpath and Bikaner House. This diverse geographical spread underscores the festival’s commitment to revealing the multifaceted nature of Delhi’s cultural landscape and its historical narratives.
A New Perspective on Learning and Urban Identity
The festival’s approach emphasizes a participatory model, encouraging the public to engage directly with the city’s history and cultural heritage. By transforming streets into galleries, book markets into living archives, and performance spaces into memory theatres, ‘The City as a Museum’ seeks to challenge conventional notions of a museum and redefine urban experience. The collaborative spirit of the festival, involving various institutions and experts, aims to foster a deeper understanding of how Delhi’s past continuously shapes its present and future.
The initiative seeks to highlight overlooked narratives and artists, integrating their contributions into the broader story of Indian art and cultural development. This is particularly evident in the festival’s exploration of artists’ colonies and their role in shaping the cultural fabric of postcolonial Delhi. Through this comprehensive approach, ‘The City as a Museum’ offers a compelling invitation to rediscover Delhi not just as a historical entity, but as a continuous site of learning, creation, and evolving identity.
The Chenab Times News Desk