Art Transforming Delhi's Underground

New Delhi:  Commuters willing to spare a few minutes from their hurried pace under the capital’s belly, will experience a visual treat with art and photography exhibitions, craft maps and rare artifacts coming up in Metro stations across the city.

Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has entered into a number of agreements with various government departments and agencies to develop a number of stations of Yellow Line (line 2) as hubs of art and culture.

While Udyog Bhavan station is transforming into the gateway to the ‘National Museum’ as per an MoU with the museum authorities, Jor Bagh and Green Park stations will promote Indian heritage following an agreement with Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH).

A unique art gallery of crafts map, locating craft production and marketing areas, was recently inaugurated by Union Minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar at the Race Course station. Crafts Museum has partnered with DMRC in this regard.

The gallery has 48 large sized artistic crafts maps, representing every state and one map for whole country and another for the Delhi NCR region.

Conceptualised and created by the Dastkari Haat Samiti over the period 1994 to 2010, each map highlights crafts and textiles of the states, depicting crafts persons and giving information against the backdrop of a particular art form of each state.

While stations such as ITO and Mandi House have informative panels depicting the local history of those areas, book stores have also been opened at the Kashmere Gate and Vishwavidyalaya Metro stations in association with the National Book Trust and Sahitya Akademi to promote Indian literature.