Feb 26
A special place will be designated for a theatrical art installation that highlights Amdavad’s identity, essence and flavour learns Priya Adhyaru-Majithia
With a unique mission of creating a tangible art form capturing Amdavad’s essence, artists from city and artists from Switzerland, France and Italy have clubbed their expertise.
In a special art project undertaken by Fanatika Theatre Club and TransIndus Foundation in association with Alliance Française, a major theatrical art installation is being prepared by a team of having about 15 international artists under guidance of Chintan Pandya, cultural co-ordinator, Alliance Française d’Ahmedabad.
Under this project, a theatrical art installation will be created which will envelop major historical and mythological references, songs and paintings associated with Ahmedabad. The concept of the art project is taken from Italian writer Italo Calvino’s book Invisible Cities.
Chintan Pandya, principal artist and initiator of the Invisible Cities project in Ahmedabad, said, “First art installation based on this book was created in 1991 at Fara Sabina, a city of Italy, by the Italian troupe Teatro Potlach under guidance of Italian artistic director Pino di Buduo. That became very popular and then many such installations enveloping essence of particular cities were created in entire Europe, North and South America. After this, Ahmedabad will be the first Asian city to have such an internationally acclaimed art installation.”
The first meeting to discuss the concept for creating this art work took place last year. And first workshop to review the concept was recently hosted early this month at Gujarati Sahitya Parishad. The next session for the project is to take place in next two months. The concrete details of the project will be announced at the international theatre festival that Fanatika Theatre Club is to come up with in January next year. The proposed production date for the project is January 2015.
Swiss actress Nathalie Mentha who is associated with Italian troupe Teatro Potlach has been co-ordinating with Pandya for this project. Pandya, who is also a theatre actor, director and writer, said, “This is project is first-of-its-kind effort to artistically preserve flavour and essence of heritage of Ahmedabad which will be of international standards. When we are hoping to bid for UNESCO world heritage city title, it is necessary to sensitize youth to value and understand our city’s culture, flavour and identity. During the course of this project, we aspire to rope in a large number of young local artists. Other local and international partners for the project will be identified soon.”
