Art festival in the heart of India’s Art Capital

Imagine yourself strolling through a lane with art installations and Artwork from around the country – while eating your favorite snacks and Garam chai, under a cascade of fairy lights and a crisp winter chill all while waltzing to some fun beats. If that’s not a perfect Sunday, we don’t know what is – that is the message from the Art Rickshaw.

The Art Rickshaw organized the first arts lane festival on 6th January 2019 at Hindustan Park in the heart of Kolkata city, the cultural capital of India. The organizers arranged a whole bunch of programs for the day starting at 11 am and wrapping up at 10pm.

The attractions were the 500ft long lane painted with paint, with different art installations, stalls, fairy tale theme, fun and food…one of the art installation was a beautiful Bengali take on the Portugal’s now famous Umbrella Sky – quite like Kolkata’s own Bansh-Jhuri Sky or Bamboo Basket Sky. One can also have Darshan of the lone Durga in otherwise odd time of the year, being completed by a potter on the footpath.

Galaxy of Artists, Authors and Musicians, which included Usha Uthup, Sarbari Datta, Kunal Basu and Rakhi Sarkar together, inaugurated the program. There was a different creative corner for the children like cap painting, stamp art, fluid art in the workshop corners, more than 60 artists presented their beautiful art forms in the exhibition, different type of stalls with vibrant colours and themes were installed like talking pots and doodling. 

Small shops showcasing an unique culture in a visually striking and interesting manner whether it was the earthen tea cups or Bengal’s quintessential Chayer-Bhaar dotted on a wall or double unique sculptures visiting or hand-crafted bags. There is a magical door with letterboxes, each one for that letter we never posted, for someone we forgot to thank, for that someone we lost. 

When there was a festival on the stage where Baul who had come from Goa. Naturally all the visitors were seen gleefully taking selfies and enjoying the atmosphere. Last year the theme was unicorn and this year the festival turned bigger and better in the form other than the previous year with positivity, fun and more.