About Madrasika in T5, Mahalakshmi Flats, 80-82, Nattu Subbarayan Street, Mylapore, Chennai

There is nothing quite as pervasive and binding as the arts. Madrasika, comprising a group of individuals passionate about the arts, is an initiative that aims, quite simply, at imbuing the "arts scene" of our city with new life and vitality, and at forging newer ways of engaging with a variety of creative processes. Potters, painters, photographers, weavers, musicians, dancers, writers, poets… all birds of the same feather, we say. We thus aim at showcasing as many different forms and types of creative processes through performance, exhibitions and public debate and discussion.

We recognise that the arts have always been deeply entrenched in issues of class, caste, history, and socio-economic and cultural status, and look to make the arts as accessible as possible. To achieve this, we believe that the arts need space, both figuratively and literally, in our everyday lives. They need to be presented to the people in alternative spaces: accessible, open, public spaces that enable engagement and enjoyment. Public space – “our" space, "free" space perhaps – invites a feeling of ownership, of involvement of a very direct kind, and we wish to reclaim otherwise featureless, undifferentiated parts of our urban landscape: spaces usually unused (MRTS stations), underused (parks and subways), and abused (the beach or the street), and organise music, dance and theatre performances, public lectures, film screenings and exhibitions of fine art, craft and photography, thereby creating new communities, subcultures and public spheres. Its effect is two-fold; in doing so we remove the art form from the dedicated – and exclusive and limiting – space (the concert hall or the proscenium) it occupies and also utilise our many free areas in constructive and aesthetic ways.

Madrasika aims to straddle two worlds: the young and the old, as well as the initiated and the uninitiated. We look to not only showcase the relatively less known but also present the well known in newer, more exciting and more accessible ways, never, however, compromising on the integrity or inherent aesthetic of the art form. We also hope to give artists the freedom to explore new ideas and present their art in unconventional ways, and create a space that allows for discussion, debate and dissent.

Madrasika is not just a collective with a dream. It is the passionate rasika, the devoted arts enthusiast. Madrasika is the microcosm of the Madras we know and love, a city that has a vibrant, rich and enriching arts scene, a city that thrums with excitement in the month of Margazhi, a city that looks to preserve tradition but also embraces the novel and different. Madrasika is about the revitalisation of a city’s spaces and the appreciation and enjoyment of an array of creative processes known and unknown. Madrasika is a movement.