Kala Ghoda has evolved to be one of the main cultural areas in the city, often popularly known as the "Art Precinct” of Mumbai.
A major catalyst helping in bringing it to this stature is The Kala Ghoda Arts Festival. The festival has accentuated the rich heritage and architecture of the city, bringing it into the eyes of the public.
What the Arts Festival provides is a platform that encourages interaction between people and their surroundings and showcases culture of the region with newer ideas of expression.
The aim is to create an interactive space which allows the people to bring in their ideas as to what they imagine art, literature and music to be. Time frames act as canvases on which the people, collectively create a new definition of how we look at these cultural activities. At the centre of it all, is the strong emblem of the Black Horse, symbolising the silent, yet eternal presence, that is the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival.
Kala Ghoda is for, of and about the PEOPLE. It is a celebration of art, culture, music and people above all. Rigid and Durable steel box sections along with mirrors have been used to bring this interactive structure to life.
The mirrors and stained glass attempt to encapsulate the colourful MEMORIES of this festival. The skewed reflections created by the the mirrors along with the acrylic panels are representative of our hazy memories of the past 20 years of the Kala ghoda Art festival.
The form is an abstract take on the symbolic Kala Ghoda, porous with seating spaces and colourful niches.
20 years of Kala Ghoda : WHERE NEXT?
Kala Ghoda has developed as a center for art and culture in the past 20 years.
From being an area of no importance it has become the cultural center of Mumbai and a center for art, standing for adaptive responsive trade. Kala Ghoda has always been adaptive to the changing times with being very responsive to people’s behaviour making it a node for trade of ideas and art. Today, Kala Ghoda has developed as a space which impacts a lot of people and has also started getting affected by the people and its surroundings.
The installation takes you through an abstract journey of how a street at once would be crossed over and passed over by people, and how today it encapsulates them within it.
The people and this foundation have affected Kala Ghoda for what it is today.
Kala ghoda is an association comprising of these multiple buildings coming together and forming a union.
The installation forms windows where you can view the kala ghoda art fest through the kala ghoda components.
These components are forming what they are today and it is a journey to the present.
The form in plan is a mirrored / reflected question mark, asking where will Kala Ghoda go next?
