A group of 35 artists from South Asia have come together to exhibit their works at the Lalit Kala Akademi in the capital with a mandate to promote cultural connectivity in the region.
The exhibition, “Colours of SAARC” presented by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), was inaugurated by Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai Friday. The exhibition has been curated from a large body of art pooled by artists from Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Maldives, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Afghanistan and India in three four camps – Jaisalmer Yellow in 2007, Puducherry Blue in 2010, Kerala Greens in 2011 and Cultural Confluence in the capital this year.
The Cultural Confluence hosted at Hotel Ashok brought 34 children between 13 and 18 years from SAARC nations for two weeks to paint messages of peace and regional solidarity.
Inaugurating the exhibition, Mathai said the show next year should be called “the rainbow to bring all the individual colours together”. “For an artist, painting is a means of expanding emotions. The only time an artist is happy is when he is painting,” Mathai said.
Explaining the implication of the rainbow, he said it “has the colours of individuality and commonality and what you have is the manifestation of south Asian collaboration”.
“The success of South Asian related cultural events including the painters’ camp and the bands festival in the past, the residency for young painters from south Asian countries and the collaborations at the Delhi International Arts Festival has demonstrated the importance of culture being the foundation of unanimity among countries in the region,” Suresh G.Goel, the director general of ICCR, said.
The exhibition is the first of the SAARC cultural exchanges – including SAARC Bands Festival and the SAARC Literature Festival – between December 2012 and March 2013.