National/International Impact
GAF brought extensive professional opportunities for the art mentees who participated in 6 mentorship programmes.
Code 43— a team of rap artists that emerged from one of such rap mentorships took their first flight to Delhi for a performance. They also performed at various festivals and colleges in Mumbai, such as SEA College, Kala Ghoda Arts Festival as well as on a programme launch for Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) and other neighbourhood level events.
Recently, the group also had the opportunity to work with special needs children at The Gateway School of Mumbai and mentor them for Rap & Music.
Films produced by filmmaking mentees Sana Shaikh, age 23 and Ifra Khan, age 15 were selected in various national and international film festivals.
Sana’s film ‘Those Three Months’ was screened at the New York Independent film Festival and the South Asian Film Festival of Montreal. At the national level, the film was selected at the International Film Festival of Kerala 2023, Beyond Borders Feminist Film Festival 2023 and the Digital Disruption Film Festival by Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in 2024.
Ifra Khan’s film ‘Nishan’ won the Special Prize in Bollywood USA International Film Festival, NewYork and was selected for the Los Angeles International Children’s Film Festival.
Our team have been inivited to various cultural platforms nationally and internationally such as CultureCon (Mumbai, 2024) Global Cultural District Network (Greece, 2024), Rebuilding Pavilion by Royal Danish Academy (Coperhagen 2023), Nazaria Arts Mela (2023) and more.
Govandi Arts Festival is now part of Global Cultural District Network, and Festivals from India network.
Local Impact
Post the Arts Festival, the youth of Govandi continue to be invited for panel discussions to talk about their experiences of the Festival and the neighborhood. They recently spoke at ‘Youth for Participatory Citizenship in M-Ward’ and ‘Digital Disruption Film Festival’ both organized by TISS.
We launched a book ‘Awaaz: Voices of Govandi’ that was born during the Artist Neighborhood Residency program of GAF 2023. Awaaz is a collection of stories co-written by 7 residents of Natwar Parekh and portrays the complexities of their daily lives in a resettlement neighborhood.
Infrastructural Impact
GAF 2023 allowed the community to reclaim an open ground of 25,000 sq ft as a public space that was earlier encroached by parked cards and piled garbage. The community now uses this space to hold cultural gatherings.
