Festival of Stories

Public program to create dialogue in public spaces through art interventions with Art in Transit

Research Associate & Program Coordinator

Art in Transit, is a public art and pedagogy collective that aims at creating artistic interventions and practices by activating public spaces through multi-disciplinary approach. It involves collaborating with the state of Bangalore (BMRCL) and Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, conducting city- related research projects, raising funds, collaborating with other cultural organisation, working with students and curating and facilitating engagement in transience sites through series of festivals.

Art in Transit has held 8 editions of Festival of Stories between the year 2016-2018. It is housed in the Cubbon Park Metro Station, a station at the epicenter of the city and neighborhood to another public space, the Cubbon Park, where it gets the name from. Festival of Stories is calendered to take place over the weekends, the time of highest footfall. The site has permanent works and during the festivals it attemts to go live generating dialogues about city and its people through creative interventions. The event includes curated artwalks, workshops, sonic installation, live performances, spatial interventions, poetry, screenings and more.

My capacity: I have had a long relationship with Art in Transit starting as a student(2015) to an artist(2016) to professionally (2017-18) as a Research assosiate, co-ordinating, programming, designing, managing the project with the team and continuing my research and practice in public art/design. I have actively been part of Festival of Stories #1, #6, #7 and # 8 in the roles mentioned above.

Festival of Stories #8 - Questions to cities

Festival of Stories: Questions to Cities, the 8th edition of the bi-monthly festival series at the Cubbon Park Metro Station. It's a culmination of three years of work where we've been working with San Francisco artists and Bangalore artists as San Francisco and Bangalore share a sister-city relationship. Through performances, poetry, propositions, workshops and more, the festival asks questions to the past, present and future of Bangalore about her own identity.

Festival of Stories #7

Through workshops, performances, participatory activities both above and under ground of the Cubbon Park Metro station, we are invited colleges and, students to join with emerging and established practices around the city to engage in a public space. And through this announce for the future of the festival. This festival was an open studio with immersive events lined up weekly. The festival begins from December 1 and goes on till 17th with series of events happening through the course. Participate in walks and workshops; Meet and collaborate with emerging artists; Experience and participate in performances and sound-art events.

Events: 14 Performances, 7 art walks, 4 workshops, 4 interventions • 1178 participants

Festival of Stories #6

This Festival marked the annual calendar of Festivals that began in October 2016. Since then there has been a festival every two months with the Cubbon Park Metro Station as both site and source. Marking this cycle of being in constant conversation with place, this festival we invite public participation in re-interpreting, re-purposing and re-imagining the metro station. Throughout its life in the metro station, the Art in Transit project has been one of accretion, erasure and residues where different sites have been constantly repurposed for Festival specific vision/ curation. For this festival we invite you to inquire and express – what is the Cubbon Park in the Metro and what is the Metro in Cubbon Park and how do we reflect on erasures and residues in order to host a larger conversation about the life of public art practice?

Events: Open calls, installation art, sonic events, student projects, workshops, poetry, walks, participatory art.

Artists: Aerate ft Smokey the Ghost, Mouth of Word, Adhishree Singh, Trisha Mehta, Ritika Pandey, Deadtheduck, PagalCanvas, Jhanvee Baruah, Yash Bhandari, Sai Krishnamulpuru, Sensing Local.