Sassoon Dock Art Project — Attraction in Mumbai

The Mumbai Urban Art Festival (MUAF) that kicked off in December is offering refreshing insights into the city’s coastal and urban culture. Apart from murals and installations, visitors can expect workshops, talks, performances, concerts, dance events, and much more. Co-organized by St+art India and Asian Paints, the festival is taking over multiple locations across the city, the main project being hosted at the famous Sassoon Docks Between the sea and the city’ is the reigning theme of artworks at the Sassoon Docks this year. Watch out for auto-ethnographer Parag Tandel’s ‘Vitamin Sea,’ a series of resin sculptures that are a commentary on marine pollution and the dangers of urbanisation. Not to miss either is graphic designer Khyati Trehan’s ‘The Texture Tourist,’ a digital media piece that was actually a crowdsourced catalogue of Instagram submissions. Another popular attraction is French artist Rero's ‘Water Speaks,’ which features a juxtaposition of mirrors and fishnets interspersed with wordplay that invites viewers to rethink their consumption habits. The festival seems intent on taking art out of formal settings and into public spaces, even the most unlikely ones. At the Sassoon Docks Art Project, aesthetics will follow you even into the washrooms. The men’s toilet features Nikita Rana's aptly titled mixed media piece ‘This Is A Photo Dump.’ In the women’s washroom, you will find Brahmatmaj’s ‘What Beauty?’ Gaysi Family's ‘Mirror Mirror, On The Wall, Do You See Us All?’ adorns a...

Though the art projects were on display for many days, we chose a Tuesday for tour, and to our surprise the place was super crowded even then!

The crowd management was the major drawback of this festival. We found ourself lost in the crowd and noise that we forgot the reason why we were there! The art wasn’t really worth all the waiting in the queue, alongside the rush and noise. It was less of art and more of a tourist spot.

The art on display lacked something! It didn’t make sense to all my senses. Appreciating art alongside the general Instagrammers, and influencers was difficult, and I have to mention the foul smell in those dark rooms inside the art house. The experience was unpleasant and noisy and exhausting. Nothing inspired me, but the fishing dock was beautiful, the raw salty fishy smell added a bit of character to the place.

An experience of art needs to be experienced through our senses. It cannot be just visual, physically or breathing. Art needs to presented in all the aspects of human senses and only then one can truly be induced and inspired by it. In this art project, though I could see beautiful architectural models, and the floating made from waste carpet, all that was amazing but the continuous noise in the background disturbed the process of absorption, and hence the point is gone. I really expect some noise cancelling strategies to be part of this festival in the coming years. Would be really...

Sassoon Dock Art Festival is an annual event held in Mumbai, India which was held after 5 years of not being hosted. We will understand why soon. The festival is organized by the Kala Ghoda Association and features a variety of art exhibitions which were some of the most generic works seen, the performance I did see was a constant circus of getting that god forbidden stamp .The festival takes place at the Sassoon Dock, a historic fishing dock located in the Colaba area of Mumbai. The dock was transformed into an open-air art gallery, featuring works by local and international artists. Ironically the fish smell was better than the works showcased as at least the fish caught here was fresh and not stale. The festival aimed to promote creativity and cultural exchange between the POIs and provides a platform for emerging artists to display their work which has now been reduced to stapling any nonsensical work as a modern-contemporary/Hyper-surrealist/Non-Euclidian work which is sadly demeaning to actual artists who have worked , just not here . Ironically the sponsored location was 10x better than all of the other 2 places combined , good job...