Driving across rural Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh, you can now catch a glimpse of Spain’s Balearic Islands. Fourteen artists from Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera visited the villages last month, to create a curated Art Walk across the various facilities of the Rural Development Trust. The public art project, which coincides with RDT’s 50th anniversary in 2019, explores both international art and local concerns to create meaningful impressions.
Unsurprisingly, Indian and Spanish motifs meld — like Ibiza artist Julia Ribas’ purple fig tree, symbolic of her homeland, across a 15-foot wall at the Jute Centre. Or Mallorcan painter Luis Menendez Rojas’ blue elephant at the auditorium. “The Art Walk serves several purposes: to bring international art to those (locals and tourists) who do not have access to it, and to serve as a gateway to highlight the developmental projects of our organisation,” says Judit Algueró Llop, International Communications Co-ordinator at RDT.
Work in progress
In 1969, Vicente Ferrer (1920-2009), a missionary and social activist from Spain, settled in the drought-prone, underdeveloped region and established RDT. Currently, 3,662 villages in Anantapur benefit from their schemes for health, hygiene, education and rights of people with disabilities.
Now open to the public, the walk has 14 site-specific works at some of the Trust’s most significant buildings, including hospitals and schools. The fifteenth, by Mallorcan street artist Joan Aguiló, is near an effluent canal. His bright blue peacock juxtaposed with a sweeper couple at work, which had the neighbourhood children pitching in, highlights the Swacch Bharat mission. Daniel Knight, an architect at RDT, says, “The walk covers a catchment area of approximately 1,250 sq km, and by road a route of 55 km from Kuderu to Bathalapalli. Next year, we plan to add more to this route.”
Deeper meaning
The artists have incorporated organic and local materials wherever possible. Ribas used ashes in her fig tree — a symbol of purity in India — collected by the women at the centre. She says, “The whole time I was here, I felt the co-operation, tenderness and honesty of the locals. The trunk is the solid structure; the branches represent growth and the struts show the external support.” London-based artist Marian Moratinos transformed a 25-metre wall at the Rafa Nadal Foundation Tennis Centre in a grand nine-day collaboration. The painter-illustrator’s projected photographic mural pays homage to the children of Anantapur, which she hopes will motivate them to play and try harder in life. “Everyone at RDT — from architects, coordinators and volunteers to the children — helped,” she adds. Next year she intends to work on big-format prints of photographs she took of women during her stay.
Elsewhere, at the Primary School for Inclusive Education, Joan Costa’s installation is playful, interactive and fluid. The Mallorcan artist and sculptor used locally-available bamboo poles, suspending them a foot apart from a grid in the ceiling. Walking through, children with visual disabilities are stimulated by varied sensations and sounds, while those with hearing problems are enthused by the colours. Another favourite is Marc Jesus’ Mediterranean-influenced mural at the Nursing School. The colourful heart with butterflies emerging — the painter-sculptor from Menorca says he painted the wall four times to get an impermeable foundation — depicts knowledge coming out of India that then goes forward.
Looking ahead
The walk was conceived through the Vicente Ferrer Foundation, RDT’s counterpart and fundraising agency in Spain. With cultural collaboration from Institut d’Estudis Baleàrics, the project began in Spain in 2017 as Mata Ombres (Killing Shades), intending to use art to turn the focus on marginalised people. After the first phase — a fund-raiser last September, where each artist put up three original pieces for sale — the Art Walk was planned as phase two. In the third phase later this year, the artists will create pieces inspired by their Anantapur experience for a travelling exhibition in Spain and the Balearic Islands. “It will not stop there. This will become a yearly event,” says Alguero, adding that next year the Foundation will collaborate with Indian artists. Planning and conceptual work will begin in May, but for now, they are readying a map for visitors to chart the tour.
Details: rdtfvf.org