Creative Community Engagement Process
Conservancy lanes which are generally found in the old, planned localities of Bangalore, run parallel to the main roads. These lanes are remnants of a conservative casteist society when they were planned a century ago and historically used for manual scavenging. Artists collaborated and painted the walls in the Malleshwaram neighbourhood of Bangalore to reach out to the citizens with the message about sustainable mobility
Community Engagement Goals
• The project aimed at revisiting the nostalgia around Malleshwaram for the citizens of Bangalore.
• The Goal was to work with multiple artists and bring to life their ideas on the walls of this locality. The street art would thus make Malleshwaram an identifiable art district.it would put Malleshwaram on the map as a place to explore via foot and revisit the conservancy lanes with a whole new perspective of progress and transforming values.
Challenges
• The local aging population of the community was assumed to have reservations about the project which however was proven wrong in the way they were forthcoming and welcomed the idea of painting murals on the walls of their properties.
• With Covid at its peak, the task of ideation and drawing the sketches was daunting.
Methods of Community Participation/Engagement
Street Art has the power to catch attention by virtue of its overwhelming presence. Hence this mode of artistic presentation was chosen to communicate the idea of pedestrianisation with regards to non-motorisation transport.
Creative Goals/Outcome
The murals help connect to the conservancy lanes that are not identified as potential walking routes. Hence, Art became a way to attract attention to infrastructural work done in order to give a facelift to the conservancy lanes.
Space
The project spans out on the streets of Malleshwaram, one of the oldest areas of Bangalore city in Karnataka. Malleshwaram is a historic, iconic yet contemporary showcase of the conservancy lanes. The Street Art project emphasizes non-motorized mobility in this area.
People
Artists from Geechagalu, along with Bangalore Moving,Sensing Local, Malleshwaram Social worked towards this project.
Bengaluru Moving contributed to this project and pursued it through its implementation. Malleshwaram Social gave the initial permission and strategized the plan for it too, while Sensing Local helped with the strategic map which provides the art trail of the area.
Time
The entire project took 45 days to complete (under 2 months).
Overall experience
The active participation of the neighborhood along with the Government’s involvement and response has helped introduce the idea of more making pedestrian and cycling friendly localities and how it could be made more more common and popular in the future.
The positive response of the local resident community also reflected the value transformation of a generation towards better community building.
Report This
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.