Jaipur. A public art festival ‘City for All’ will be organized at Jawahar Kala Kendra (JKK) on April 2 and 3 to question the role of gender in shaping public spaces and urban experiences. Through various interactions and workshops, this six-city project will urge the public to re-imagine the design and architecture of urban centers from an inclusive perspective.
Curated by Swati Janu of Social Design Collaborative and Chris Blacht of Genre et Ville (Gender and Society), the festival seeks to create awareness through dialogue and art. The festival is an initiative of Ambassade de France en Inde, Institut Française and Alliance Franchise India. It is being organized in association with Visakha Jaipur, Indian Woman Blog, Lady Bamford Foundation, Neerja Modi School, Stirworld and Leewardists.
The festival will be inaugurated on April 2 at 6 pm and a curated walkthrough will be conducted. After this, the Deputy Ambassador of France to India, Dana Purcarescu and other representatives of the Government of Rajasthan will deliver the speech. There will be a musical performance by folk musicians Sumitra Devi and Manganiyar at 7 pm. This program will end at 8 pm. The exhibition will be open for public viewing on 3rd April from 10 am to 8 pm and interactive and curated walks will be organized and school children will also visit. A short play based on gender inclusion will be presented by the students of Jaipur based NGO Indian Woman Blog.
The project will visit 36 areas around Jaipur, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Pune, Bangalore and Delhi to map the relationships of different communities with their cities. Its dialogue will reveal local histories, narratives and patterns on how public spaces are used based on local diversity of gender, identity, age and abilities as well as economic background, class and caste. Online exchanges between design, planning and architecture students from France and India will bring to the fore individual and group gender experiences. Finally, maps will be displayed in the exhibition to be held in each city and interactive dialogues, public debates, cultural presentations and curated walks will also be organized. Through all this, attention will be drawn to the urgent question ‘Who builds our cities, and for whom’?
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