Deccan Chronicle

Where the streets have frames

Take a walk down the streets of the Old City to experience this photo exhibition

- PRIYANKA PRAVEEN

Your first stop is the Chowmahall­a Palace, you then head out to Laad Bazaar, take in the sights, sounds and smells, then go straight to the Sardar Mahal and then make your way back to the 100-year-old Nimrah Café. Your schedule for the photo-exhibition Dialect and Dialogue —In the streets of Hyderabad is set. Bringing art out of galleries and splashing it all over the city is artist and gallery owner Avani Rao Gandra’s forte. This time, with this exhibition that is part of the Indian Photograph­y Festival, Avani is taking on the gallis of the Old City with photograph­s she curated. “Art has become elitist as it is only displayed at galleries and is widely disconnect­ed from people. So the best way to bring art and people together is by taking art to them,” explains Avani. For this show, each viewer is given a map to the exhibition and as they follow it, photograph­s will slowly show up on shutters of shops, across pillars and inside the café. The show is spread across one kilometre and has three clusters. “The show starts from Chowmahall­a and ends at the Nimrah Café. At the Chowmahall­a, we have 15 photos on display, then we have nine photograph­s across the stretch from Laad Bazaar to Nimrah, and the third cluster at the Sardar Mahal has six photos,” she says.

On the Laad Bazaar-Nimrah stretch, photograph­s are displayed on closed shutters of shops and inside the cafe too and the photos are either a stark contrast of the place or complement the area. “We have chosen a few shops that have two shutters. One of the shops is a spice shop, where a blow up of a poor man eating a bread is placed, then on an embroidery workshop store shutter, we have used the photo of a weaver. We don’t just have sights, but the smell from the spice shop, the hullabaloo of the area... everything just adds to the experience,” says Avani, adding that 28 photograph­ers have shared their work. “It’s not just a romantic version of the city. We have covered everything from riots, people, festivals and more,” she says. However, there were challenges. First, the rains, following which the event was postponed to October 3. Later, the sanctions.

She says, “While we managed to get permission to display work at Sardar Mahal (a heritage building which is currently the office of zonal GHMC commission­er), we couldn’t get a nod for displaying at the Charminar.”

The exhibition will have three walks with the curator on the 3rd 8th and 15th of October

 ??  ?? Avani Rao Gandra
Avani Rao Gandra
 ??  ?? (Clockwise) Photograph­s by Saurabh Chatterjee, Satyanaray­an a Gola and K. Ramesh Babu
(Clockwise) Photograph­s by Saurabh Chatterjee, Satyanaray­an a Gola and K. Ramesh Babu
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