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Narrative Change

Peace in pictures at Kala Ghoda Arts Festival

By February 13, 2019December 25th, 2023No Comments

YUVA and Photography Promotion Trust present a rare collection of photos on the city

Photo exhibitions at Jehangir Art Gallery, Kala Ghoda Arts Festival (photo credit: Karishma Fonseca)

5 days. 100+ photographs. Thousands of visitors.

Youth for Unity and Voluntary Action (YUVA) in partnership with Photography Promotion Trust (PPT) presented photographs from the ‘Peace in the City’ photography competition at Jehangir Art Gallery, Terrace Gallery and outside terrace area from 6–10 February 2019.

In January, we sent out the call for entries on ‘Peace in the City’. As a non-profit development organisation working in urban spaces in different cities across India for almost three and a half decades now, at YUVA we were keen to understand how people visualise ‘peace’. What is the most apt image that comes to mind when we talk about peace in the urban?

Over the next few days, we received an outpouring of submissions from different urban spaces.

To give you a slimpse of the kind of entries received, take a look at the two photographs below.

Left to right, photo credit: Aslam Saiyad, Diptesh Unhalekar

The exhibition was opened on 6 February 2019 by Sahitya Akademi Award winner and renowned writer Kiran Nagarkar who commended the photographers for their exhibits. ‘The collection of photos are so rare. This is such a celebration of the city,’ he said.

From left to right — Kiran Nagarkar takes a look at the photo exhibition; A visitor at the Gallery takes a photograph (photo credit: Vaibhav Jha)

Over the next few days, as the exhibition continued, performances by artists associated with Natural Streets for Performing Arts, local street play groups, a book reading session by author and journalist Ketan Vaidya, and a poetry reading session by Arwa Qutbuddin also kept the audience enthralled.

Photographers who had taken part in the exhibition also shared their thoughts on why they had clicked the photo that they had submitted.

Performance by Soch group
Top to bottom (clockwise): Poetry reading session, street play performance, a photographer shares his Peace in the City story, and Arwa Qutbuddin reads from her poems (photo credit: Vaibhav Jha)

We received great support from the visitors, who left us many kind comments. Thanks to each one of you for taking out time for our exhibition at Kala Ghoda.

Interacting with visitors at Kala Ghoda Arts Festival

The Peace in the City photography competition is one among three Bolti Bombay competitions (which also include debate and street play competitions), a part of YUVA’s ComplexCity celebrations. During ComplexCity (from 13–24 February 2019), YUVA aims to celebrate urban values, history, culture, socio-economic realities and much more, with diverse audiences across Mumbai and Navi Mumbai. The events are open to all in the city, to promote the debate and discussion on all things urban, so that people can get a better understanding of these shifting spaces and the role individuals can play in co-creating inclusive and democratic cities. Each programme aims to offer knowledge-sharing platforms and spaces, to help people engage with and appreciate a range of perspectives.

ComplexCity starts tomorrow. Come join us at Jai Hind College for the debate competition (10.30 am onwards), and at K. C. College for the street play finals (4 pm onwards).

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