Does Mumbai like street art at its traffic islands?

Has street art in the city become the vanguard of a political class? WHAT's On decided to take a walk around Mumbai's traffic signals to find out

Has street art in the city become the vanguard of a political class? WHAT's On decided to take a walk around Mumbai's traffic signals to find out

With the unveiling of a sculpture of a woman holding a puja thali, at a traffic island near Sena Bhavan, yesterday, Mayor Shubha Raul is on a roll to beautify traffic islands across Mumbai, with sculptures that reflect the social milieu of the area around them.

Sculptor Vitus touching up a sculpture that was unveiled yesterday at the Sena Bhavan traffic island

The project took off in June last year, when she unveiled the sculpture of a kavadvala (vegetable vendor) at the chaotic Plaza Cinema traffic signal at Dadar. She followed it up with a Maharashtrian woman watering a tulsi plant at the Hindu Colony signal. After the multi-coloured, graphic-stained animal tableux outside Churchgate Station got a thumbs down from Mumbai's artist community, we are wondering how the city will receive a string of hand-painted, fibre sculptures that are far from aesthetic, and part of Raul's "look good" agenda to help "spruce up traffic islands with a local flavour and message".

Street art has to engage viewer: Pankaj Joshi, conservation architect and committee member of Urban Design and Research Institute says street art makes sense if it's done tastefully, and has an across-the-board appeal.

"This initiative reeks of political aspirations to please the common man's sentiments by making a martyr-like reference to the daily wager," says Joshi, who'd prefer it if installations at traffic islands were performance-interactive. He hints at the possibility of a light-and-sound show. Urban art needs to become performance art so that more people can engage with it. But given that traffic islands are at the center of frightful jams, the thought of a mob congregating to enjoy performance art, sounds way too traumatic to imagine.

A sculptor from Borivli, 49 year-old Brother George Vitus has been giving shape to these sculptures. Those at Plaza cinema and Hindu colony are painted bronze to give them an expensive sheen when all they cost is between Rs 15, 000 and Rs 20, 000. Raul says a sculpture is easy to maintain, and economical, ruing that traffic islands are easily encroached on.

At a time when Mumbai-born London-based sculptor Anish Kapoor is making waves internationally (the Royal Academy has announced a retrospective of his work), perhaps the Mayor could have approached an artist who can produce urban street art that's local in essence but on par with international standards, and so engaging that commuters have something to stare at, other than the steering wheel.

Drive down to Sena Bhavan, Hindu Colony and Plaza Cinema and tell us if you like what Raul has dished out on Mumbai's plate. Write in to whatson@mid-day.com