Walls with voices: This building at Ukkadam in Coimbatore is now a work of art

Block 10, Tamil Nadu Urban Habitat Development Board, Ukkadam, is the address to a vibrant piece of art: one that features people and objects that make up the locality

“That’s the keerai lady,” laughs Shakeela Begum, pausing in front of Block 10 of the Tamil Nadu Urban Habitat Development Board at Ukkadam. She is on her way to the grocery store and has stopped to chat with the artists.

The building is the canvas for Trespassers, a Kerala-based artists collective. They have been invited to work at Ukkadam ‘art district’, a public art initiative by St+art India Foundation, in association with Asian Paints and Coimbatore City Municipal Corporation.

Shakeela looks at the building with growing familiarity. Painted on it are her friends and neighbours: the wingless parrot seated on a blue plastic drum; the lady in a yellow dupatta buying vegetables from a grocery shop; a brown and white tabby cat that lounges on a sunshade; a goat that gingerly makes its way up a staircase…Artists Jinil Manikandan, Arjun Gopi, Pranav Prabhakaran, and Sijoy Paulose from Trespassers, have specifically picked people, animals, and objects that form the imagery of the locality as their subjects.