Indian fishers unload their morning catch as sari-clad women carrying buckets on their heads walk past street art that has transformed one of Mumbai’s oldest fishing docks into an exhibition space.
Thirty artists from around the world have given the bustling 142-year-old Sassoon Dock, home to Mumbai’s traditional Koli fishing community, a colorful makeover as part of the St+art Urban Art Festival.
“The artworks range from mixed media to graffiti to street-art styles to installations, from using paints to wood to fishing objects,” cofounder and director Arjun Bahl said.
Photo: AFP
Exhibits include large portraits of Koli fishers — believed to be Mumbai’s original inhabitants and whose goddess Mumbadevi lends her name to the city — and brightly painted murals representing women from the community.
One installation, entitled Parfum Sassoon, alludes to the dock’s notoriously pungent fishy smell while another has a clear environmental message with its depiction of plastic bottles floating through the ocean.
The Sassoon Dock project is part of the seventh edition of the festival, which aims to make art accessible to everyone by transforming a public space.
“The whole idea was to bring art to a certain sect of the community who usually don’t interact with art,” Bahl said as dock workers pushed trolleys loaded with fish and boats bobbed gently in the harbor.
Sassoon Dock was built in 1875 and is home to one of Mumbai’s largest fish markets. It is in the district of Colaba, in the southern tip of India’s financial capital.
The exhibition, which is free to view, opened to the public on Saturday and runs until Dec. 30. It will also feature screenings, talks and tours.
Another feature of the festival is a giant, multicolored mural on the nearby Churchgate railway station showing India’s independence movement leader Mahatma Gandhi stepping down from a train. It was painted by popular Brazilian street artist Eduardo Kobra.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese