Shillong: Metropolis 2018, the ‘urban winter festival’, has got off to a flying start in the capital city of Shillong in Meghalaya.
The three-day festival will feature events in tune with the theme, ‘The eARTh Connect’. Just like in the past, it will bring together indigenous culture, pop and contemporary art, literature, food, lifestyle, fashion, entertainment, music, film, photography, adventure, inspirational talks and discussions, all under one roof.
This year, Metropolis 2018 has joined hands with seven embassies to celebrate culture and brotherhood. Representatives from Hungary, Czech Republic, France, Spain, Portugal, Poland and Mexico are among the attendees.
There are various activities planned to run at three venues in Shillong, including the State Central Library, All Saints’ Hall and Shillong Club.
All the events will aim to connect people with mother earth and create awareness about the various threats to nature and how we can help in small ways to reduce our carbon footprint.
There is a line-up of 19 music bands that will perform in the festival, of which 15 are from Shillong.
The other events happening are the Eco-Crusaders, a dustbin making art competition, urban sketching, which intends to document the festival through live sketches, illustrations on water colour journals by Sweta Kaushik from New Delhi and Mukta Changmai from Assam.
Cycledelic, an event celebrating the love for cycling, will also be organised during the programme. The festival will also host a show by Niha Novacaine, the renowned cosplay artist, and Flying Machine, a B-Boying group, among others.
Soccer lovers can gear up to see Jean Doest, the world panna ball champion. Besides this, there is ‘Circle of Friends’, a group of poets, story-tellers, musicians and performing artistes from Russia and Siberia with some scintillating performances both in traditional and contemporary art forms of the region.
Movie buffs can bookmark ‘Culture of Resistance’ (US), one of the world’s leading travelling film fests which is all set to screen a list of groundbreaking films from across the globe during the festival.
The ‘Global Watercolour Summit’ will also be a highlight of the festival. It will have some of the biggest names in the medium such as Athanur Dogan, an internationally-recognised Turkish-Canadian artist; Milind Mulick, the ‘water-colour wizard of India’; artist Bijay Biswaal; La Fe from Thailand; Kauser Hossain, the ‘water-colour mastermind from Bangladesh’; and NB Gurung, the ‘water-colour maestro from Nepal’, among others.
