On Monday, the Indian Space Research Organisation had a proud moment—it successfully separated its lander 'Vikram' from the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter. Though this happened in the afternoon, the moon was making news since early morning in Bengaluru, courtesy a viral video. The video featured a person dressed as an astronaut, 'moonwalking' on one of Bengaluru's pothole-riddled roads that truly seemed like a prototype of the moon's surface.
The video was shared by city-based artist Baadal Nanjundaswamy. Sharing the video, he captioned it “Hello BBMP”. The video release was timed to coincide with the Chandrayaan milestone, said Baadal, who has regularly used art to highlight potholes in the city and draw attention to the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike's (BBMP) apathy. A freelance artist, Baadal said he has support of other artists and actors who 'perform' for him based on the theme. The astronaut in this latest video is Poornachandra Mysore, a city-based theatre artist.
Hello bbmp👋 @BBMPCOMM @BBMP_MAYOR @bbm #thelatest #streetart #nammabengaluru #herohalli pic.twitter.com/hsizngTpRH
— baadal nanjundaswamy (@baadalvirus) September 2, 2019
In this street art for instance, he just poured acrylic emulsion paint on the Herohalli stretch, and had an actor walk along as an astronaut. It is in fact, a perfect representation with an uncanny resemblance to the moon's surface filled with craters. “I had not planned for any artificial lighting. We shot the video at 10pm on Saturday, and the lights you see are just natural street lighting and those of vehicles,” he told THE WEEK. “But I was surprised at how beautifully it has come out.”
In October last year, another image of an actress dressed as a mermaid, seated beside a pothole which resembled a blue pond, went viral in the city. The man behind this too, was Baadal, whose other 'pothole-art' includes painting life-size crocodiles, mosquitoes on the road. “I usually paint on the road and potholes. But this time, the road was too muddy that all I could do was pour paint over it and not use a brush,” he says about the 'moon surface' in his latest work.
A quick look through his social media profile shows that he has been tagging the BBMP in all his works. Have they ever responded to him? “No, but they go on to the fix those roads immediately,” he quips. Art does hold the key to drawing attention to civic issues, and when it picks up on social media and other platforms, action follows.
The state of roads in Bengaluru has been so pathetic that in an interim order in August, the Karnataka High Court stated that the BBMP would be liable to pay compensation to victims or their families who incur losses or injury because of these roads.
