Colour Box is now open

The doors to our new gallery Colour Box are now open!

We had a noisy little ceremony to inaugurate our workshop and exhibition space and it was well-attended by dozens of Dharaviites. The narrow front entrance was very crowded with people wanting to participate in the traditional aarti ritual and the breaking of the coconut. After the auspicious beginning (we didn’t quite manage to smash the coconut into smithereens as we hoped to), we rushed into the two floored house.

People from Dharavi were very excited to step into Colour Box and we hope to have some friendly neighbourhood sessions soon. We have left the interiors of the gallery a little raw, so that it can be changed over and over again to suit exhibition designs. On the ground floor, we had exhibited the stunning Provoke/Protect sarees, festoons of health posters, the dream girls cutouts and the letters recycled from waste fabric. 

There is a charming little fleet of stairs that lead to the upper floor and we had exhibited the comics corner (which turned into a cafe of sorts), the story grills and artworks from our previous exhibition Ghar Pe (which took place in 2012). The sprawling space upstairs looked colourful and evoked the curiosity of every visitor.

More than 350 people attended the inaugural of Colour Box. We are now looking at some upcycled/recycled furniture to put into the space.

Banjara women with their pretty bags

Near Colour Box, our brand new workshop and exhibition space in Dharavi, we found this group of Banjara women who work as labourers. They were taking a break from carrying cement and kept themselves occupied by doing some very intricate embroidery with beads. They embroidered patches of jeans which looked psychedelic and stunning. These are recycled pieces which some women do very painstakingly as wedding gifts to other women in the community. They have little bells and mirrors worked into them as well. We asked if these were for sale and the women replied that these weren’t. We hope to call them soon to one of our workshops and share their embroidery skills with us.