In 2015, the Kerala Tourism Department’s ‘Arteria’ project adorned Thiruvananthapuram city’s walls with graffiti and paintings by 20 renowned artists. These works of art included depictions of Kerala’s art forms, festivals, animals, birds and other things specific the state. However, for the last many months, these painting are barely visible, thanks to the posters, advertisements and notices being pasted over them with impunity.
After several people complaining about this on social media platform as well as the Smart Trivandrum mobile, the mayor of Thiruvananthapuram Corporation, corporation cleaning staff and members of Haritha Karma Sena cleaned the walls around Chandrasekharan Nair Stadium, making the Arteria paintings visible again.
Mayor K Sreekumar mayor and other volunteers removed the posters and washed the walls. The fact that many posters were pasted on top of old ones over the months made the task more difficult for the volunteers.
"Now we have removed posters. If it (people covering the graffiti with posters and ads) is repeated again, strong action will be taken against those responsible," the mayor told media
Though the posters and advertisements have been removed, it was clear that the paintings and graffiti will have to be retouched to restore their previous beauty.
The District Tourism Promotion Council (DTPC) in association with the Tourism Department had worked to facilitate these paintings under Arteria. The Tourism Department had spent around Rs 40 lakh for it. The first phase was completed in 2015, covering around 7000 sq ft, which was on exterior walls of University Stadium stretching from LMS Junction to Palayam. The second phase was completed in 2017 which was about 15,000 sq ft.
In January 2019, the then City Corporation Mayor VK Prasanth, along with green army volunteers, had cleaned the walls too by removing posters.