14 artists mould scrap to help beautify Nagpur

NAGPUR: Sparks flew as clanking metal parts were welded at the central workshop of Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) on Great Nag Road, on Sunday. It wasn’t a usual day. Fourteen artists from across India were at work, in a process to turn scrap into artistic forms. These art works from scrap, undertaken for the first time in the city, will be installed at various parts of the city, as part of Nagpur Mahotsav.
Sculptors from Baroda, Delhi, Pune, Mumbai, Lucknow, Kolkata, Bangalore and Rajasthan, besides Nagpur, have been invited to take part in this initiative of beautifying Nagpur. After reaching on December 16, they toured several junkyards to assemble material, and were given a welder each to assist with their project. They are expected to showcase their models on Monday.
What were once diesel and gas cylinders, fire extinguishers and little round parts of JCB machine, have now been moulded into a wonderful human structure holding a baby up in the air. “I’ve showcased a father and child’s love. People usually talk of mother and child’s bond, but I wanted to depict a father’s affection,” said Lucknow-based freelance sculptor and curator Shantanu Shastry, who shares that he recently became a father. His model is almost ready.
Sachin Bonde, an alumni of JJ School of Art, said he was building a rooster. “The rooster will hold a balance and a graph showing progress. It is an attempt to show we are going from local to global,” he said.
For Nagappa Pradhani, associate professor of sculpture from Karnataka, long hollowed bars were his material for building the structure of a family. Atul Mahajan, a sculptor who specializes in interactive art, brought human and nature together through his installation which moves just like flowers sway in the wind. “People keep talking of nature conservation, but the implementation is near zero,” says Mahajan.
The art installations in the city would feel incomplete without a trace of orange in it. City-based sculptor Nana Misal, a resident of Mahal, has created a beautiful orange cart with little replicas of orange, juice jars and tiny bottles of salt and pepper.
Swapnil Sangole, a sculptor from Mumbai, used a circular ring to showcase Zero Mile. “I wanted to show that just like sun’s rays, development of Nagpur has begun from Zero Mile area and is continuously spreading,” he said. Representing Rajasthan, Neelam Chauhan, a student of sculpture, will create structure on tigers. Sculptor Bhanu Pan from Kolkata was busy with his model which is an attempt to raise awareness about air pollution.
Nilesh Shende, freelance sculptor and resident of Surya Nagar and in-charge of the event, is working on the ‘Life of Tree’ theme. “I proposed the idea to municipal commissioner Shravan Hardikar and put forth a list of names. This event is big and awe-inspiring since nowadays nobody wants to work using scrap because assembling various parts is a daunting task,” he said.