Delhi Mural Project Agenda 21
Lady Irwin Senior Secondary School, Canning Road; Realisation: January / February 2000

organization: Peeng e.V.   co-operation: Bharati Chaturvedi; Lady Irwin Senior Secondary School, New Delhi, Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi (Branch of the Goethe Institute, Munich); Artists: Arpana Caur, New Delhi / Indien; Sönke Nissen, Hamburg / Germany

The mural in Dehli

Delhi Mural Project Agenda 21

Das indische Fernsehen bei der Arbeit

This is an Indo-German exchange project and will take place between the cities of Delhi and Hamburg. The Indian artist Aparna Caur and the German artist Sönke Nissen-Knaack are going to realise together two murals, one each in their hometowns. Thus working in tandem, the artists will work out the first mural in Canning Road (next to Lady Irwin Senior Secondary School) in the centre of Delhi during January and February 2000, the other one in Hamburg in August 2000. Both murals will be based on the thinking of the Agenda 21 of the Rio Summit 1992, linking the themes of Agenda 21 to the visual power of the murals.

detail

Sönke Nissen-Knaak is a mural artist from Hamburg. From the end of December 1999 to the beginning of March 2000 he visited New Dehli, the capital city of India. There he met his collegue, the artist Apana Caur. Jointly, they developed a draft mural, paying special attention to the relationship between India and Germany. Before they finally started to paint, they identified the outer wall of a secondary girls‘ school, right in the centre of New Dehli. The mural reflects the complex issues and different problems of sustainable development, transported by the metaphor of a global puzzle. An European boy and an Indian girl sit in the centre of the picture. They play with the puzzle pieces, each symbolically showing different aspects of this complexity. The pieces are scattered all over the mural and a world map serves as the background.
Together with the artists, there was an event at the Goethe Institute, which is called "Max Mueller Bhavan". Many visitors came to listen to the lecture and to watch the slide show about international mural painting held by Sönke Nissen-Knaack at the Faculty of Arts in New Dehli. The events had the intention to accompany the mural project. The project received a lot of publicity and attention in India, especially since the artistic aproach of ecological, social and political problems via public mural paintings is very new in India.

mural layout for New Dehli

The artists received support from the Goethe Institute in New Dehli, which donated money for paint and the scaffholding. There was further organisational support by the environmental activist and art connoisseur Bharati Chaturvedi, and by the Director of the "Lady Irwing Secondary School".






Supporters:Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi; Official Agency of Culture, Hamburg; “Peeng” - Artist agency, Hamburg; “Bildnetz” - Artist Associacion, Hamburg

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