Kohima: Nagaland Sate capital Kohima has plenty of blank walls– looking drab and morose- except for the miscellaneous pamphlets or grime stains occupying portion of the walls, empty gutka sachets littering their base.

Surrounded with countless potholes, litter and the dirt, stench of corruption and unemployment among youths, as observers unreservedly say, the blank walls mirror the lackluster and disillusioned life its inhabitants lead.

In such a depressing urban environment, a simple idea is trying to paint some life into the otherwise dull town.
A team of local artists – Vineizotuo Tase and Vithuse Temi – has teamed up with Sievituo Solo under the banner of Project 72 Hours to render an artistic outlook to Kohima town through art impressions.

Remember Project 72 Hours-a community service initiated by Solo with a committed team of six members to clean Kohima town with the primary objective of encouraging school and college students to participate in community service as part of their extra-curricular activity?

The same Project 72 hours is undertaking the Urban Kohima Street Art mission, this time with contribution from local artists. It is not a sponsored mission but a free will contribution from the project team members.

“We, as ordinary citizens, have no money even to fill the potholes in our roads, but time, we have to contribute to our community with what talent we possess, and this is what we are doing,” the project coordinator Solo told The Morung Express.

Solo said this will also be a platform to provide opportunity to local artists, to promote and showcase their works-and hopefully people will take notice of the innumerable local talents around.

“If we look at the music community, they are getting enough opportunity, not that it is unfair, they deserve it…but for the artist, they have no platform and this is an opportunity,” he added.

At PR Junction, just below Police Headquarters (PHQ), black and white photo murals of Argentine Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara; American media proprietor and talk show host Oprah Winfrey, theoretical physicist Albert Einstein, 16th US President Abraham Lincoln and 11th President of India APJ Abdul Kalam adorn the wall.

Dedicated as the ‘Wall of Hope,’ these artistic impressions of differing personalities juxtaposed on one space have a connection.

They were/are all ordinary citizens; “they all struggled and fought for their passion against all odds and fought till the end or are still fighting,” Solo explained.

The street art works also provide an insight into the pool of talented and creative Naga artists, of whom many are not even aware.

Freelance artist Tase, a member of the Project 72 Hours Street Art team, considers it an honor to work towards spreading a message of hope through art that hopefully inspires the youths.

The Street Art team has, so far, painted brilliant visuals at PR Hill junction with the Wall of Hope, one outside Oking Hospital on judicious use of water and at Y Junction on Sanitation- using the medium of art to educate people.
All the impressions are in Black and White. “We are using black and white to make the art works appear simple, meaningful and pristine,” Tase explained.

While Tase visualizes Nagaland becoming an art haven, he lamented that there is a very little platform for artists here, with no proper exhibition gallery, unavailability of art materials and art institutions.

Project 72 Hours plans to introduce Street Art and initiate groups in all the districts to begin a revolution on street art culture and transform the town into vibrant colors so that tourists not only wonder on the repository of nature of the State but also behold the artistic virtues of the place, reported Morung Express News.

The once big blank wall at PR Junction has found many an admirers and of course opinions- “Why don’t they paint Naga personalities,” an elderly passerby said.

Though the Street Art team is at the initial phase with their Mission in turning Kohima into an artistic town, the change is evident.

In the morning, as school children walk by the Wall of Hope, they reflectively pause at the murals and read the telling inscription of how a newspaper boy became a President of India or how a victim of abuse became a rescuer of the abused.

Finally, they look up where another inscription reads, “You are never walking alone,” continuing the walk to their schools.