One of the biggest questions taunting artists everywhere is: Can art create change? Can it ever truly marry a social cause and play a role in creating a social change? For art lovers and buyers in India, the answer can be found on a plate now. There is a plate revolution in the works, thanks to The Plated Project, an initiative that aims to end hunger through art.
On their website, they claim that “India is home to the largest undernourished population in the world with over 20 crore people sleeping hungry every night.” So the idea is simple – to end hunger, and for this, they collaborate with NGOs and artists every month to create unique theme-based plates that are printed with beautiful and vibrant art. Every month, a specific social cause is chosen and then, an NGO in the domain is chosen. Following this, five artists interpret that theme in their own ways. The resulting art finds a digital way onto the plate and is sold to art lovers. The ideology is simple: “When you buy a plate, you fill a plate.”
The themes for the plate revolve around love, nostalgia, childhood, and hope. Their latest collaboration with Creative Dignity– a movement working toward sustained prosperity of local artisans through rehabilitation and rejuvenation – aims to help the traditional local artisans. Each sold plate will ensure 100 meals to an artisan family.
Out of all their collections so far, our favourite artworks are the bright, vibrant and fun ‘The Filmy Barber’ by Priyanka Tampi that is a colourful take on small barbershops and the love for Bollywood that is in bold display at these shops and ‘The Ludo King’ that, at the first go, seems like an artistic interpretation of the ludo nights we all indulged in during the lockdown but on a closer look, unfurls to become an accurate depiction of the contrast in lives of all stuck in the lockdown.
You can checkout their collection, here.
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