MRTS stations to be Chennais art canvas?

CHENNAI: In a bid to add colour to MRTS stations and boost art in open spaces in the city, Germany’s Goethe Institute is planning the first of its artistic activities at the Thiruvanmiyur Rapid Transit System Station.Speaking at a three-day symposium ‘Human Space — Cultural Space: on Urban Ethics’ here recently, Karl Pechatscheck, director of Goethe-Institut Chennai, said an exhibition ‘Chennai 24/7’ would be inaugurated soon.The expo would feature photographs by professionals and amateurs."In addition, we will present a German Jazz ensemble Lautstark!4 together with Chennai-born guest musician Ramesh Shotham at the Thiruvanmiyur station," he said.Presenting art projects in public spaces has a double benefit. They make art public and create art space as a social space, he said.He also said that a large extent of ‘art in open spaces’ is unknown in Chennai, except for some traditional, religious and historic sculptures.“The urban audience, even in small numbers, must gain even if they were just to spot the open space,” he said.Pechatscheck also felt that Chennai’s urban development was affected by an infrastructure that was not keeping up with the growth of population.He said existing and planned metro projects were destroying traditional dwelling zones and rivers, leaving behind slums, besides adding ecological damage due to conditions of waste disposal.Pechatscheck was of the view that railway stations in the city had failed to provide urban life a living face and were no meeting points.“The rapid transit system stations are gigantic blocks of buildings, nearly empty, dreary, stinking, without any infrastructure and often hardly accessible.They are not cross-linked with the surroundings. Even adjacent shopping malls ignore their existence,” he said.