The Monsoon Festival 12

Exploring the multi-hued awakenings of the Indian Monsoon

A curatorial overview

Red Earth’s The Monsoon Festival celebrates its 12th edition in 2017. A well established cultural festival in Delhi, it aims to celebrate the magic of the Indian monsoon with the old and the new, reviving forgotten traditional cultural practices and pioneering contemporary creative expressions.

The monsoon is not just a season, but a complex cultural being, bringing alive the fertility of the Indian mind – in art expressions ranging from visual art to poetry, music to drama; lived culture including festivals, food and other celebratory elements; and the richness of human emotional response.

From abstract musings to a celebration of the lush languishing landscapes of the monsoon, the flora that grows greener by the day, the fauna that cannot contain itself; to its effect on the human race (farmers, lovers, and others…); the divine mythologies of the rain and environment; and the new experience of the monsoon in urban centres with its often anti-thetical narrative of monsoon as a nuisance – the season connects us to the magic of the cosmos, and brings together everything – from a raindrop to the vast ocean in this mad unalloyed dance of joy.

The Monsoon Festival is an inter-disciplinary, cross-arts, multi-sensory celebration of the varied awakenings and experiences of the Indian monsoon, the king of Indian seasons.