Kala Ghoda Arts Festival 2025: Horse-Themed Art Installations Draw Thousands of Mumbaikars On Opening Day; See Pics

Mumbai: Mumbai’s iconic Kala Ghoda area turned into an art district on Saturday as the week-long annual Kala Ghoda Arts Festival commenced for its silver jubilee edition. The 25th year of the historic festival saw visual arts on the theme of horses reimagined by artists in different forms and sizes, each expressing unique artistic thoughts.

Started in 1999, KGAF was the first-of-its-kind multi-disciplinary street arts festival in Mumbai started by the Kala Ghoda Association with the aim to maintain and preserve the heritage of Kala Ghoda area. The celebrated arts festival is back with its 25th edition featuring an exceptional lineup spanning literature, dance, music, theatre, food, architecture, and design, stand up, visual arts etc.

The 25th KGAF kicked off through a stage event at Cross Maidan as the festival’s director Brinda Miller inaugurated the festival along with brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation commissioner Bhushan Gagrani, Maharashtra’s Minister of Information and Technology Ashish Shelar and actress Sanya Malhotra among others.

The highly sought after visual art installations on the K Dubash Marg featured a uniform theme this year as the silver jubilee edition pressed on the symbolism of horses. Artists made out huge art pieces in different shapes and forms of horses expressing unique artistic thoughts behind their creations.

While one of the art pieces showed the city of Mumbai as a chessboard and the suburban railway, BEST bus and kaali peeli taxi as knights, another sculpture of a chess knight made out of trash served as a reminder of a collective responsibility to protect Earth’s waters. Similarly, a huge art piece of a seahorse also tried to reflect upon water pollution whereas a winged horse of Pegasus represented a symbol of divine inspiration.

KGAF also launched ‘Lifestyle’ as its 15th vertical that brings to life fashion, wellness, youth centric engagement and sustainability at the festival. Keep Moving with Milind Soman will feature Roopa Pai speaking to Milind Soman, Usha Soman, and Ankita Konwar about staying young in mind and body. The vertical will include a fashion trot in the precinct, a fashion show at Cross Maidan, a series of talks, workshops and activities.