MAPPING THE FUTURE

Garden City. Cantonment town. Epicentre of global tech. Bengaluru has been called many things, but never an art hotspot. That’s quickly changing as the city unleashes a new creative impetus that matches its energy and ambition.

- BY VIVEK MENEZES

A curious paradox has reigned in Bengaluru since it began boiling with money after liberalization in 1991, and the famously bucolic "Garden City" became the epicentre of India's globalization story. Now the fastest-growing city in the entire Asia-Pacific region, its population has tripled in the greatest urban economic boom in the subcontinent since 1947. Yet, even while defining the country's future prospects in many different crucial areas, all that limitless ambition seemingly stopped short when it comes to art and culture, which continued to languish under institutionalized and incongruously informal. Now, all in a rush in the post-pandemic era, that too is being rapidly transformed, as a host of independent ventures are rising up to fill the vacuum. Trailblazing this bold new direction is the Museum of Art & Photography (MAP), which opened in February earlier this year, and has already galvanized the art world with its impressive tech-forward online and physical avatars. Intrigued by what it has achieved in just a few months, I recently visited MAP to better understand how this cultural start-up is navigating an expanding set of international ambitions alongside its home city's rooted identity.