The City as Museum: A unique festival of art and heritage
From November 19 to 28, on the occasion of World Heritage Week, DAG Museums, in collaboration with organisations in and around Kolkata, is organising a first-of-its-kind festival of art and heritage, titled ‘The City as Museum’.
To celebrate World Heritage Week (November 19-25), Delhi Art Gallery or DAG Museums has partnered with organisations in and around Kolkata to organise a 10-day-long first-of-its-kind festival of art and heritage, titled ‘The City as Museum’.
The idea is to take people to various sites that help reconnect Bengal art to diverse notions of Bengal’s heritage. ‘The City as a Museum’ implies that the city itself is a giant museum, with its age-old architecture, numerous antique as well as evergreen lanes and bylanes, and myriads of anecdotes.
The festival will help viewers experience Kolkata in a refreshingly new light and discover new stories in both familiar and unfamiliar places through art, music and conversations. It is an attempt is to make the citizens more conscious of the city’s heritage.
As Sumona Chakravarty, Deputy Director, Ghare Baire, DAG Museums said, the connection between art and our shared history is often lost when we view it in isolation inside a museum. Therefore, by curating unique experiences in the city and beyond, the exhibition is an attempt to help people “to connect more deeply to our legacy of art and culture”.
November 19 (from Outram Jetty): An evening on the barge to rediscover the river as seen by travelling European painters in Bengal, ending with a concert by Whale in the Pond.
November 20 (at Eastern Quadrangle, Victoria Memorial Hall): A workshop for creative practitioners to imagine new uses of heritage spaces as sites of performance, practice, and engagement, presented by the Victoria Memorial Hall, DAG and Pickle Factory.
November 21 (at Nihar on the Ganges, Panihati): Revisiting the Tagores’ legacy in art and music on both sides of the Hooghly, followed by a concert by Srikanta Acharya at Nihar on the Ganges in Panihati.
November 23 (at Botanical Gardens, Shibpur): A guided walk at the Botanical Gardens followed by an exclusive viewing of the 18th-century botanical illustrations by William Roxburgh, exploring intersections of art and nature.
November 24 (at Painting Gallery and Courtyard, The Indian Museum): A walkthrough and workshop tracing the evolution of visual language from Mughal miniatures to the Bengal School and beyond with Swarup Dutta and Arnab Basu, presented by the Indian Museum and DAG.
November 25 (from Reserve Bank of India, BBD Bag): A guided night walk through the architecture and history of the Lal Dighi neighbourhood with Immersive Trails.
November 27 (from Minerva Theatre): A walk through the studios and presses of Chitpur Road to explore the history and afterlife of Bat-tala, with Paula Sengupta in collaboration with Hamdasti.
November 28 (from Clock Tower, Garden Reach): A walk through the remains of the exiled kingdom of Awadh in Metiabruz, exploring its lasting influence on Bengal’s art and culture, with Breakfree Trails.
