It’s been a decade since the Khoj International Artists’ Association made the urban village of Khirkee Extension its home. This year is also important in Khoj’s calendar for the newly furbished building and exhibition space that they have finished constructing. To celebrate these two milestones, Khoj is now gearing up for a three day arts festival that they say has no precedence in the city’s art history. Scheduled from November 23-25, the festival, titled Khoj Dus Tak, will host 20 projects, six events and 27 artists and give the residents of Khirkee a chance to double up as artists, musicians, theatre artists, cooks and more.  

The gamut of activities during the festival will represent the participatory practices in Khirkee where artists and communities come together to address the visible and invisible transformation in their surroundings. Ranging from an art exhibition of various community based projects done at Khoj, Khirkee shop makeovers, nukkad natak, mural-making, football matches, hip-hop dance offs, a music concert, kavi sammelan and mushaira, Khirkee walks and more, these events will feature a cross section of the Khirkee residents and have been developed in collaboration with the community and several art practitioners.

“Khoj has been based in Khirkee Extension for the last ten years and during this time, Khoj’s engagement with Khirkee – the location, its (often changing) inhabitants and its surrounding areas – have given various artists the opportunity to facilitate creative workshops, events, research projects and other participatory activities with different sections of the community,” said Pooja Sood, Director, Khoj. “Such community programs have always been led by the Khirkee extension community to produce collective visions and ideas about creative and urban development. It is to celebrate this continuous process of community engagement that we have organised Khoj Dus Tak.”

Among the 20 projects, will be a “Photo Studio” created in one of the rooms of the newly renovated Khoj where the residents of Khirkee will be invited to get their photographs taken at minimum price so that they can create memories that mark their lives. “Shop Makeovers” will bring eight artists – Upasana Mehdiratta, Gaurvi Sharma, Vinima Gulati, Ram Bali Chauhan, Tulsi Ram, Amitabh Kumar, and Sanjib Roy – who will work in collaboration with five shopkeepers to exchange ideas and develop a collective method of art-making. The artists will help the shopkeepers to identify and translate ideas about how they can re-decorate their shops. “Khirkee Murals” is another project where Anpu Varke, a former resident of Khirkee and Nasheen, a current resident of Khirkee, will mark their stay and interaction with Khirkee by drawing murals relating to the changing face of Khirkee and ongoing urban expansion. For “Khirkee Raag”, Tarik, a band based in Delhi and Shillong, will collaborate with three musicians from Khirkee to create an original song about the place. Sounds from the local chai wallah, small production units and hawkers will compliment the musical content. For “Khirkee ka Khana & Recipe books” project, on each day of the festival, Khoj will invite five women of Khirkee to cook special food items of their own creation. The food will then be served to the general public while a recipe book will also be made available.

One of the major events will be an exhibition that will be displayed in Khoj's brand-new premises and on the streets of Khirkee. It will present a history of Khirkee with old maps and audio narratives from older generations currently residing in Khirkee through “Window into Khirkee”. “Khirkee Patchwork” will investigate the composition of Khirkee and its neighborhood and create a colorful map of Khirkee made up of stories and objects collected from there. The exhibition will also revisit some of Khoj’s old and new community projects, like “Khirkee-yaan”, “Play@Khirkee” and others.

Apart from these and other projects and events, Khoj will also organize a guided tour of Khirkee with Sohail Hashmi, a Khirkee mushaira and kavi sammelan, a music concert and a nukkad natak.