Madras Art Weekend reimagines the city through art
In Chennai, art is not merely something that hangs on walls; it drifts through salt-sweet sea breeze, stains fingers with filter coffee brown, echoes from temple corridors, and hums along the tracks of a metro line cutting through old neighbourhoods. The city itself is a living canvas. It is this sentiment that Madras Art Weekend (MAW) returns to celebrate, where Madras and art are nearly synonymous, each reshaping and reimagining the other. In its fourth edition, the theme for Madras Art Weekend 2025 is Madras Reimagined, asking a pertinent question: how do we preserve the memory of a city while sculpting its future? The annual festival, founded by Upasana Asrani, has evolved into a highly anticipated cultural event in Chennais creative calendar, bringing together artists, designers, architects, gallerists, collectors, and audiences. Madras Art Weekend is a festival for the city and for its people. It celebrates the spirit of Chennai and its creative pulse, says Upasana, reflecting on the journey since MAW began in 2022. What started as a niche space for contemporary art has since transformed into a movement that now shapes and mirrors Chennais cultural imagination. The festival has grown from strength to strength, year after year, evolving into a massive movement. People have been eager to be part of it, and it has now become an annual legacy of the city of Chennai, she says. The theme was conceived after months of conversations across the artistic ecosystem, which Upasana refers to as cultural custodians. MAWs visual identity, this year, was conceptualised with branding collaborators Whoa Mama Design, who worked closely with the festival to give shape to a narrative rooted in the cinematic, emotional, and historical layers of the city. We wanted to look at Madras through the lens of its past as well as its future, and the idea of Madras Reimagined emerged, she says. This edition expands its creative geography far beyond a single venue. While the VIP preview and Gallery Exhibit at Taj Coromandel remain the central showcase, featuring leading galleries such as Saralas Art Centre, DakshinaChitra Museum, Memeraki, among others, the festival spills into the city through collaborations with spaces including Raw Mango, Gallery Veda, Lakshana, and others. MAW has built a growing community through year-round engagement. We dont wake up a month before and scramble to put a programme together. We host events every month to stay connected with our community, Upasana notes. This includes collector home tours, studio visits, gallery collaborations, and digital storytelling formats that take audiences behind the scenes of the art-making process. Among the most anticipated additions this year is the Art Vandi, created in collaboration with NalandaWay Foundation. It is a mobile art van that has travelled through rural pockets, carrying art materials to children in remote communities. The vandi has enough art material for students to come in and do workshops with facilitators, says Upasana. Schools and institutions across Chennai have been invited to engage with the programme, reinforcing the festivals intent to plant seeds for the next generation of makers. The programming also includes a special workshop with Rainbow Fish Studio led by Sara Vettet, alongside a dynamic line-up of panel discussions, exhibition walkthroughs, and performances that bring together industry leaders, celebrated designers, architects, and artists from across the country, culminating in a poetic closing performance by Lekha Washington at Wild Garden Caf, Amethyst. For someone stepping into Madras Art Weekend for the first time, Upasanas message is simple: Explore all the parallel shows happening across the city, and then come to Taj, where all the galleries are exhibiting. Come, soak in the art, experience it. She reflects with quiet emotion, sharing that she is dedicating this edition to her late mother, whose support shaped her journey, and to her guide and mentor, Mata Amritanandamayi Devi. MAWs commitment to inclusivity is visible in its educational and social outreach initiatives last years effort saw Chennais art community contribute supplies to students of Government College of Fine Arts, and this year, the festival hopes to fund the education of two deserving art students. In this edition of MAW, Chennai does not gaze nostalgically backwards; it walks forward with its history at its side. Madras Art Weekend 2025 unfolds across venues in Chennai, with the Gallery Exhibit at Taj Coromandel open to the public from today until December 6. Visit @madrasartweekend on Instagram.
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