The Bhubaneswar Art Trail (BAT), which would showcase the traditional old city and modern day capital city from November 20 to December 20, has started taking shape with the infrastructure requirements mapped, engagement with local community organised for a participatory approach and curators’ team formed with Prem Jisk Achari, well-known artist, Jagannath Panda and Prof Hannah Barnes in the helm of affairs.
Engagement with local population has started with door to door campaigns, engaging local clubs and associations, building stakeholder relationship and schools. This includes Kedargouri Club, Guajhara Association, BK College of Art and Crafts and Dhauli College of Art.
Infrastructure requirements have been mapped with specific requirements for street lights, repair work, setting up of toilets, cleaning of streets, drainage repair, painting of walls and sharing of infrastructure document to be shared with other line departments.
The funding of the trail would be mainly from Departments of Tourism and Sports and Youth Services, besides Tata Steel.
The title of the event is ‘Navigation Offline.’ This unique project of Utsha, BDA, BUKC and BMC would entail exploring the history, lived realities and social relations of the various communities and addressing issues of access, exclusion, discrimination, etc., and understanding the aspirations of the community.