Svasti Sankul Exhibition Inaugurated at IGNCA

NEW DELHI:
The Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) has opened a new integrated space for art lovers, the Svasti Sankul, comprising an Art Gallery, Souvenir Shop and Cafeteria.
Also open to the public now is a permanent exhibition of the Raja Deen Dayal Collection from the IGNCA archives showcasing works from the legendary 19th century photographer and his studio. The exhibition on 11, Mansingh Road will be open to visitors from 10am to 5 pm, six days a week.
The Svasti Sankul and the exhibition were inaugurated on Monday by Dr. B.R Mani, Director General of the National Museum in the presence on senior IGNCA officials including President Ram Bahadur Rai and Member Secretary Dr. Sachchidanand Joshi.
Dr. Mani said the new complex offered the right ambience for creative minds to come up with new ideas.
Dr Joshi said Svasti Sankul, which will be open from 10am to 8 pm from Monday to Saturday, intends to be a creative hub for artists and the IGNCA has plans to build a stage for live performances there to attract more people.
The Souvenir Shop has handmade articles, books, DVDs from the IGNCA collections depicting art, culture and traditions from different corners of India. The Cafeteria serves up a range of delicacies at reasonable prices and is also partly an exhibition space showcasing paintings from rare books.
The art gallery currently showcases collections from IGNCA archives on Tribes of Eastern India and will be a continuing exhibition for two months.
Virendra Bangroo, who has curated the exhibition, said it also includes copies of photographs from rare books of 18th & 19th Century and of Colonel Edward Tuite Dalton’s 1872 work titled ‘Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal’.
“The purpose behind this exhibition is to propagate Indian culture, attract viewers, utilize the free space and make it a vibrant place for art lovers to hang out and also to introduce them to the collections of IGNCA archives,” he said.
The visitor response to the Svasti Sankul has been encouraging for IGNCA. One of the visitors, Raghuveer Singh Thakur, a security officer at the Archeological Survey of India said, “Art exhibitions such as these spread awareness about India’s heritage, which many don’t care about for lack of knowledge. There need to be more such art galleries for the conservation of our heritage.”