From library walls to Dal Lake: How public art is giving Kashmir a new canvas

The first thing that catches my eye at the University of Kashmir isn't the imposing Allama Iqbal Library or the stream of students hurrying across campus. It is a wall.

A gigantic 11,500-square-foot mural covers the library façade in a riot of colour, symbols, and stories. Students stop to photograph it; others pause to examine its details before heading to class. Inspired by the university's motto, "Tamaso Ma Jyotirgamaya—From Darkness to Light", the mural by Srinagar-based artist Zoya Kashmiri draws on ideas of knowledge, imagination, and cultural memory.

Standing before it, I find myself thinking about how dramatically the role of public art is changing in Srinagar. Art here is no longer confined to galleries, museums, or traditional craft workshops. Walls, university buildings, and even shikaras are becoming canvases for stories about Kashmir—its crafts, architecture, folklore, and landscapes.

A city becomes a gallery

Kashmir has never lacked an artistic tradition. Papier-mâché, walnut wood carving, pashmina weaving, and embroidery have been part of the region's cultural and economic warp and weft for generations. What feels different now is where that visual language is appearing.

I see one example in the Aks-E-Kashmir initiative, launched in August. The project by Asian Paints attempts to take familiar motifs beyond workshops and traditional craft products and put them into places people encounter every day.

The art isn't simply decoration. Much of it feels like an attempt to make the city's existing cultural vocabulary visible in places where people live, work, and move.

Where art floats

The idea takes an unusual turn on Dal Lake. Among the familiar fleet of carved wooden shikaras, some boats now stand out in bright colours. Floral patterns, geometric designs, and illustrations run across their sides, catching the afternoon light as the boats glide between houseboats and patches of lotus. From a distance, they look almost like moving paintings; up close, their designs reveal details drawn from the Valley's visual heritage.

Under the Aks-E-Kashmir project, 40 shikaras have been transformed into floating works of contemporary art, creating what is believed to be India's first floating public art gallery.

The choice of the shikara strikes me as particularly significant. These aren't props brought in for an art project. They are working boats, livelihoods, and, for many families, an inheritance passed from one generation to another. They are also among the most instantly recognisable symbols of Kashmir.

The four artists involved—Owais Ahmed, Sheehij Kaul, Zahra Javed, and Shweta Sharma—have worked with that existing identity rather than attempting to disguise it.

“Our designs draw on Kashmir's architecture, papier-mâché, walnut carving, embroidery, saffron fields, and folklore. The boats continue to carry passengers across the lake. Only now, their surfaces tell another story,” Ahmed tells me.

For Gulfam Ahmed, 56, a shikara owner whose boat received a makeover, the transformation has had a more practical consequence. “People stop us more often now. Earlier, visitors admired the lake. Now they also ask about the artwork, the artist, and what the shikara’s designs represent. That has brought in more business while giving us another way to share Kashmir's culture,” he says.

Watching the painted shikaras move across Dal Lake, I realise that this may be what makes the project particularly effective. The art doesn't ask visitors to come to it. It moves with them.

A Kashmiri take on public art

Public art has become a familiar way for cities around the world to change how people experience their surroundings. Bogotá, Melbourne, and numerous other cities have used murals, installations, and street art to enliven neighbourhoods and reclaim neglected spaces.

Kashmir's approach is different in one crucial respect: the subject matter comes from the place itself.

As I move through Srinagar, I keep encountering things that are already recognisable to Kashmiris—the patterns seen in papier-mâché, the details of carved walnut wood, local architecture, embroidery, folklore, Sufi traditions, and the landscape. The visual language isn't imported. It is being reinterpreted.

And the art isn't confined to one location. Across Srinagar, walls, underpasses, and public spaces developed under the Srinagar Smart City programme have been given murals featuring Kashmiri crafts, Sufi traditions, and elements of the region's natural heritage. At Kashmir Haat, temporary installations and craft displays have brought more traditional forms of art into public view. Heritage-inspired sculptural and design elements have also appeared around parts of Badamwari and the Jhelum riverfront.

The effect is gradual rather than dramatic. There is no single art district or grand transformation waiting to be photographed in one sweep. Instead, I find myself encountering individual pieces in places I might otherwise have passed without noticing. That, perhaps, is what makes the movement interesting. Art is becoming part of the city's everyday visual rhythm.

As evening falls, I find myself back near the university. The library mural catches the last sunlight across the campus, its colours shifting as the day fades. Somewhere on Dal Lake, the painted shikaras continue their familiar routes, ferrying passengers across the water.

The city hasn't suddenly become one enormous art gallery. But for anyone willing to look closely, Srinagar now has considerably more to see.