Artistes tell importance of voting through sand art

A group of fine arts students depicted major political and social themes with sand in poll-bound Indias northern Uttar Pradesh state and used sand as a medium to highlight the importance of casting vote in a democracy.The sculptures were created on the bank of river Ganga in Varanasi city on Thursday (January 19).An artist, Manish Gaur, said that in wake of the upcoming elections, it is important to make the people understand that their vote holds a lot of importance.The theme of this art is to make people aware of the importance of vote, to help India to develop in a better way and to save people from corruption. This is to make people aware that every single vote is important and to choose the right candidate. In wake of the ongoing election fervour, we took it as an opportunity to spread this message and choose the right candidate, said Gaur.More than 60 sand sculptures were created on various themes.Apart from election-related issues, the students used sand to showcase other problems that affect our society like corruption, child education, female foeticide, polio awareness, traffic, pollution, natural calamity and deteriorating condition of the planet.The objective behind making these sand sculptures was to showcase how the common man was reeling under corruption and they are helpless and we have tried to depict the plight of the common man, said Seema Aggarwal, another artist.A large number of people lauded the artistes for aptly depicting the ills that have pervaded our society.Every student has chosen their subject but the best part is every student has good knowledge about the current affairs. Some has made art on Jan Lokpal, on election process and the work has been done with a positive frame of mind.So, its good that the youth is aware and it is being projected in the form of art, which is the best part, said Rajat Pathak, a visitor.Elections in Uttar Pradesh will be held in seven-phase polling in the months of February and March this year. The polls are being viewed as an opportunity for Indias major parties to re-establish or strengthen their footholds in the countrys fifth largest and most populous state.