Home to a mix of cosmopolitan life and old heritage, Bandra is one of the most popular suburbs in the city of Mumbai. It represents the contemporary face of Mumbai while being deeply rooted in its history. St+art India Foundation’s second-ever street art festival, St+art Mumbai 2014 was kick-started in a quaint pocket of Bandra - Pali Village. The project was then gradually extended to other areas of Bandra including Pali Hill and Chimbai.
Between 7 – 30th, November 2014, 50 artists from 11 nationalities worked on artworks across the locality to create #artforall. The festival aimed to introduce the city of Mumbai to street art and allow artists to create artworks in response to their interactions with neighbourhoods in the city.
Pali Village
The area of Pali Village was mostly home to Koli fishermen and farmers before the arrival of the Portugese in India and is predominantly Catholic.The buildings architecture traces its lineage to the portugese heritage of the 16th and 17th Century, and is a mix of Portugese and Koli styles. Artists spent time in the neighbourhood and explored the lanes as surfaces, leading to a plethora of artworks and colours popping up in the neighbourhood.
Spaces like these are rare in a large, growing metropolis like Bombay and are often threatened. And the threat is not that somebody will come and destroy it, but they are essentially being bought out. And this being one of the entrances to Pali Village - almost like a threshold between two different set of urban's, the idea was to create a visual metaphor for this confrontation, so the idea of a battle came about
- Amitabh Kumar
Chimbai Village
One of the oldest settlements in Bandra, Chimbai Village’s existence dates back to about 400 years. Today it’s a neighbourhood that maintains a strong sense of community. Retaining much of its old world charm, it still houses several traditional, old-school houses belonging to fishermen.
After Pali and Chimbai Village, larger-scale works began in other parts of Bandra. Much like Pali Village, the whole of Bandra (W) was once a cluster of hamlets inhabited by farmers and fishermen. Today it’s one of the most happening suburbs in the city of Mumbai. Over the year, it also became a favourite spot for graffiti writers to leave behind tags and pieces making for a contrasting juxtaposition of art and heritage. Working with the artists, we spread works across the neighbourhood, forming a Bandra art trail of sorts.
