Mural of the story: Artists are taking viewers to a fascinating world of colours by creating public art in several parts of the country

Greta von Richthofen was travelling abroad when the coronavirus pandemic hit the world. “I had to go back to Germany. It was a chaotic and strange time, and I was really afraid,” says the Hamburg-born graphic novelist. Two years later, von Richthofen’s first travel outside Europe was to India, to find the meaning of travel through art.

Aashti Miller decided to return home to Mumbai from the United States where she was an architect, a few months before the pandemic started. “I have been working remotely before remote working became a worldwide phenomenon,” quips Miller, a Mumbai-born architect and illustrator.

In February, von Richthofen and Miller came together to create a large mural in Delhi’s Lodhi Art District, following it up with another in Chennai’s Kannagi Nagar Art District earlier this month. The two murals, whose brush strokes explore elements like diversity, peace and harmony, gender rights and equality, reflect the significance of public art for a society reeling under the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Their giant mural in Delhi’s Lodhi Colony measuring 100 feet wide and 35 feet tall has a yellow fish with wings, a pink flamingo on a bicycle, a big bird on roller skates, and an orange giant whale in a deep ocean, all representing the possibilities of travel in a world curtailed by the health emergency. The colourful objects, among them a giant bird in bright yellow flapping its wide wings, push the boundaries of imagination as much as they connect with the community. In Kannagi Nagar, the mural is 39 feet wide and 43 feet tall.

A project by the Goethe Institut (Max Mueller Bhavan) in collaboration with St+art India Foundation, a platform for urban contemporary art, the murals also highlight the much-needed collaboration between cultures. Called Graphic Travelogues, the project follows two others in the past that explored comics and culinary through art. “Public art is interesting, because it is democratic and not like you have to pay for a movie or exhibition,” says von Richthofen, whose first graphic novel, Das Gute am Ende des Tages (The End of the Day) published last year, documents the beginning of the pandemic. “I think it is art that is for everybody,” she adds.

Miller, who first began experimenting with illustrations during lockdown in Mumbai, feels people have come to value public spaces in the absence of open places and lack of contact with others. “It is sort of amazing to see how the lack of human connection drives people to redefine open space and public ground,” she adds. The artists, who were selected in an open call in December last year, spent weeks researching on cultural and architectural elements of Delhi and Chennai before beginning to create sketches for their artworks. The sketches took them to a fascinating world of colours, helping them select as many as 37 shades for the two murals.

Weeks later on the ground, their creativity and collaboration are inspiring many, among them college students returning to campuses for the first time in two years, retirees seeking new beginnings and school children enamoured by a multitude of colours.

“The mural gives you a weird sense of peace just by looking at it,” says Arya Ramesh, a final-year student of Early Childhood Care and Education at the Ambedkar University. “Every wall has a different painting, and every painting has a different meaning,” says Ritika Mehra, an undergraduate student of Delhi University about the murals in Lodhi Art District. “I am fascinated by the artworks. They lighten up your mood, sometimes make it worse,” she jokes.

In Kannagi Nagar, a housing colony for people rehabilitated from Chennai’s coastal areas after the devastating tsunami in 2004, both Miller and von Richthofen relied on a variety of drawings of fish related to the community. “From the start we somehow agreed we have to have this fish in our work. So, across this whole theme of displacement, basically being a fish out of water, and the people there feeling that way really stuck out to us,” explains Miller.

Another mural project in the national capital, also in February, celebrates the 75th anniversary of India’s independence. Created by French artist Fabien François Thomas aka Mr Poes, the project in partnership between the Embassy of France and the Union ministry of external affairs, has two large murals on the walls of the Mandi House Metro station. Themed on the tidiness of the traditional French garden, the murals painted in two weeks using 260 spray cans assimilate the artist’s impressions of Delhi. “It is a little bit of desi French garden,” says French Embassy’s chargé d’affaires Dana Purcarescu. “I wanted the murals to be positive green by bringing a bit of nature into it,” says the Paris-born Thomas, who now lives in Lyon.

“The city of Delhi is very green. It is an amazing city with a lot of gardens. I wanted to make a positive image. The colours I found in Delhi were close to the colours I had in mind,” adds the artist, who has painted murals in many cities across the world, including favelas in Brazil and flyovers in England. Says Thomas, “Public art brings joy to the people.”

Faizal Khan is a freelancer