Kashish film festival brings affordable art to support social cause

‘The 377191 Wall Art Exhibition’ at Gallery Beyond (Kala Ghoda) launched on May 23 by noted artist Prabhakar Kolte and filmmaker Aruna Raje, has become a hub of activity attracting diverse visitors – from students, artists and serious art buyers.

Parmesh Shahani, head of Godrej India Culture Lab, and author of the book 'Gay Bombay' says, "This is a super initiative by Kashish to widen the scope of the film festival to other disciplines like art, and also to build bridges between the LGBT community and its straight allies. The exhibition, a show of solidarity between artists of all orientations, is like a beautiful rainbow. It has been my pleasure to visit it several times since it opened, and to acquire 3 works from it, and I encourage all those who haven't been to it, to go visit it soon. The art works are really affordable and it is for a worthy cause."

30% of the proceeds of sale go to Kashish fundraising. Rest goes to the artist after deduction of gallery’s costs for setting up the exhibition.

“What is cool is that most of the artworks are really affordable, even those by established artists. We are looking at sale of some of the artworks as a fundraising activity for Kashish to enable year-round activities to bring about greater awareness about diversity. So I sincerely hope that more and more people buy the artworks and help a social cause,” said Rangayan who hopes that the funds raised through this initiative will help other such initiatives to be organized by Kashish this year.