
Dharavi Biennale
Various Venues
February 15–March 7, 2015
Curated by Nayreen Daruwalla and David Osrin
Dedicated to the improvement of women’s and children’s health in Mumbai’s informal settlements, the Society for Nutrition, Education, and Health Action, an NGO, has over the past two years organized workshops and exhibitions pairing Dharavi residents with mentor artists and health advocates under the auspices of the Dharavi Biennale. The project is not only SNEHA’s biggest art endeavor to date; it is one of the largest ever art-activism enterprises in a country teeming with such activity. This resulting exhibition, titled “Alley Galli Biennale,” will feature the products of more than fifteen workshops (led by artist Chaitanya Modak, writer Jeet Thayil, and filmmaker Ram Devineni, among others), including comics about sanitation problems and domestic violence, assemblages of recycled waste, and a cookbook comparing disparate ideas of nutrition within Dharavi’s compressed multicultural community.