Chandigarh
8 November 2020
DIVYA AZAD
Thousand Of National and International Artists come together on November 7-8, 2020 to showcase their works of art virtually. World’s Largest Online Creativity Event (W-LOC) see over 10000 + art submissions in 25 categories, in addition to more than 40 national and international speakers followed by an award show. This is an initiative by Rajesh Batra, the man behind International Art & Imagination Forum (IAIF) who wanted to give back to the community of artists as he considers them the base of his startup, Chhapai.
Amidst all the negativity, insecurity and danger, one thing that this pandemic helped all of us do is to move inwards. Inwards, to the realms of thoughts and imaginations and this is what made us all stand together to fight against this critical time. But, what about those, for whom this imagination was the only source of their bread and butter? What about those, who never let anyone interfere between themselves and art and all their aspirations revolved around artistry? This COVID-19 outbreak definitely became a hindrance for these artists to reach out to their admirers. Art galleries were closed, art exhibitions were put on hold, no one knew for how long. So many policies were formed to reform the situation for people at different levels, but the sphere of artists remained almost untouched, globally.
That’s how a small community of artists on Whatsapp took this big decision to do something for the art world in different parts of India and across the globe.
“We have been working with designers, visual artists, illustrators, editors, writers from different parts of India and abroad. All these creative minds are the base of my venture and when this Covid situation arrived, I observed how severely it impacted the economic livelihoods and morale of these artisans,” said Rajesh.
With his small Whatsapp community that has a few artists and art admirers as members, Rajesh decided to revive the motivation of such artisans, for whom this pandemic became a huge obstacle in their financial survival. And, this is how the idea of the World’s Largest Online Creativity Event (W-LOC) took place.
The two-day virtual art forum will witness some of the most iconic pieces of art from leading artists being displayed in a virtual gallery that has been specially designed for IAIF. W-LOC will be an event filled with highly interactive panel discussions from leading names in the industry like Shoba Narayan Ji, an acclaimed Indian artiste, Mr Subhir Malik, founder of the Indie Rock Band Parikrama, Mr Paul Syng, creative director at Contend among others. A panel of esteemed jury members will be judging the best art submission in each category giving all the participants to win exciting prizes worth $5000 and a trophy.
Another concern that Rajesh raised is about the Indian art forms on the verge of extinction.
“IAIF was created with a focus to uplift and preserve arts of the verge of extinction across India and other parts of the world. Their survival was impacted even before the outbreak and the pandemic made the situation even worst for them. So, we are trying to trace such art forms, bring opportunity to them and give them a platform to engage and showcase their work to a well-targeted global audience. Every artist can send his/her artwork directly to the buyer without giving any commission to the intermediate platform,” explained Rajesh.
Meanwhile, Neerajj Mittra, Creative Director of W-LOC and founder of NM Artistry Spreading Smiles and Co-Founder & Chief Art Strategist Gallery: Art’est- An Art Abode, said, “Being an artist myself, I understood the opportunity that this event would bring to people who are skilled but do not know how to use them in the right direction. I am glad to be associated with this historic movement to celebrate raw talent from across generations and genres.”
The world record is happening in association with the World Book of Records, United Kingdom.
