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Public art festival starts today at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus
![This is what Wong Ka-Ying’s bubble wrap wall looks like at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus. ([en]counters)](https://images.hindustantimes.com/rf/image_size_640x362/HT/p2/2016/10/08/Pictures/_ecb1e5b6-8d45-11e6-b25a-dc2df696e7dd.jpg "This is what Wong Ka-Ying’s bubble wrap wall looks like at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus. ([en]counters)")
The ArtOxygen celebrates the public art festival on Bory Bunder theme at the city’s first railway station.
Don’t be shocked if you bump into a wall of bubble wrap while leaving hurriedly from the exits or some platforms at CST station from today. In fact, bump into it with abandon and enjoy the bubbles as they pop. The obstacles are a part of the seventh edition of ArtOxygen’s public art festival [en]counters. This year’s edition, Bori Bunder @ Platform 8, pays homage to the city’s first railway station, Victoria Terminus, built in 1885 and renamed Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) in 1996.
Eight artists from India, Europe, UAE and China, will use installations, workshops and digital display of public art to highlight the role of Bori Bunder, which emerged as a hub for trade, communication, technology, architecture and design in the 18th and 19th centuries. The area around the station shaped Mumbai as a place of progress, cosmopolitanism, commerce – literally the city of dreams it is today. The works, says Leandre D’Souza, founder of ArtOxygen will “look at city’s diversity and capture daily migration, mayhem and movement.”
Read: Schon Mendes brings urban buzz alive in art
Those walls of bubble wrap carry a political message too. Wong Ka-Ying, a 25-year-old artist from Hong Kong, China, calls them a satirical ploy to import Chinese air to India. “As people hit against the structure, the bubbles will burst and the air inside them will release,” she says. The act is designed to make you question the idea of productivity that is often associated with local labour – your bubble-bursting yields nothing more than a few satisfying pops.
Teja Gavankar, a 30-year-old artist from Borivli, has works that engage commuters even further. She gave some of them sheets of paper bearing four dots each, and asked them to join the dots without geometry. “I then created an animation combining all artworks digitally that will be displayed on LCD screens at the CST railway station and Sir JJ Institute of Applied Art on days of festival.”
In addition to the station and the art school, works from Bori Bunder @ Platform 8 will also be on display at the Palladium mall in Lower Parel and the ICIA- The Arts Trust in Fort. The festival also includes workshops and music performances by independent artists.
What: [en]counters- Bori Bunder @ Platform 8
Where: CST railway station; Sir JJ Institute of Applied Art, Fort; Palladium mall, Lower Parel and ICIA, The Arts Trust in Fort
When: October 8 to November 30
Entry: Free. Visit artoxygen.org for details
