Merging science and public art

Next week, if you happen to visit the loo in Saket’s swank Select Citywalk mall, you’ll get what grandmas usually dispense: home remedies and free advice.

Next week, if you happen to visit the loo in Saket’s swank Select Citywalk mall, you’ll get what grandmas usually dispense: home remedies and free advice. Tips on good digestion, beauty, hygiene… all playing from a sound system in the public toilet. It’s part of a public art project that the Khoj International Artists Association is putting up in locations around Delhi.

HT Image

It’s an example of what public art has become. No more is it about statues of leaders that go on to serve as receptacles of bird droppings. Public art now is, well, about “interventions in the public sphere”. The projects range from the effects of climate change to building a passenger propelled rickshaw. There’s a lot of science in art these days.