Making a change with every stroke. Here’s an art community you must know of
It is common in India to watch grey, dull shutters that protect a shop from vandalism and theft. We’ve all seen that around us, but have you seen art on a rustic shutter?
An art community is here to slowly change the way we look at shutters. The Shttr Project is turning these old and unsophisticated shutters into beautiful artworks. Interestingly, it is just not art; this community also aims to impact and enable a change in the existing environment and social conditions in urban setups, using shutters as their medium.
It all began one night when Sharad Dhuliya, best described as an aesthetician, was walking down the streets of a busy marketplace in Delhi. Running an urgent errand at night, he couldn’t help but wonder the sheer contrast between a marketplace during a busy day and at the wee hours of the night.
An idea hit him that night. He wanted to create art on these shutters and give them a life of their own. He believed that creating artworks on these shutters would help uplift a public space and instill the importance of keeping one’s surroundings clean and litter-free.
And that’s how the Shttr Project began.
The Shttr community is a simple collaboration of art enthusiasts from all walks of life who wish to break the monotony and reflect their creative inputs with the help of paint brushes, colors, and a blank canvas.
Here, the blank canvases are public spaces, or must we say shutters.
The art community grew from one person to twenty in a matter of a few weeks, and since its inception, the artists have painted eight shutters in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, and Rishikesh.
Sharad Dhuliya, Co-Founder, The Shttr Project, tells us, “The Shttr Project has had the most humble beginning, and we were overwhelmed to see the response from fellow artists and their sheer enthusiasm to collaborate to create art. The Shttr Project is more than a community of artists, and we are looking to strengthen our unadorned aim to create artwork on streets, along with an effort to instill the importance of the environment and our surroundings.”
He also added,
We are ever looking to expand our community and take it to many more cities and individuals. We love to make the entire experience memorable. Hence, we conduct fun workshops and brainstorming sessions to familiarize ourselves and use each of our best capabilities to put together a mural on a shutter in one night. Each of our collaborations sees a new team of artists, designers, and art enthusiasts, and that makes me happy that India as a country has the talent, skill, and most importantly, enthusiasm about community art.
We further asked, “Where do you see The Shttr Project in days to come? To which Sharad enthusiastically said,
We would love to be present in every city and town in the city. I understand it’s ambitious, but we strongly believe that the love of art will bring us together, one shutter and one artwork at a time.
The COVID-19 pandemic did put a temporary halt to The Shttr Project’s activities, and the team had to wait before they could paint shutters again. As things begin to look positive, enthusiastic, and more energized than ever, the Shttr community is gearing up for another series of collaborations and tie-ups with shop owners and art lovers from all across the country. They plan to expand their presence to cities unexplored this year and the next.
We wish The Shttr Project all the best and are eager to look at what they create next.