Daira - Center For Arts And Culture

Daira's main objective is to create and support an art audience in Hyderabad. The gallery is possibly the most active in the city, and welcomes people of all ages and backgrounds to be part of its community.

The central belief of Daira is the integrating of different art forms that complement each other. Paintings rub shoulders with photographs, music, poetry, even dance. For example, they have poetry recitals with a slide show of paintings in the background (Iqbal Patni and Laxma Goud seem to make a good pair).

Young artists with innovative concepts are encouraged, as Atiya Amjad, the owner of Daira, strongly believes in experimenting constantly. A workshop was held here once with seven artists bringing their studios into the gallery, in terms of experimental and unfinished works and sources of inspiration, to acquaint people with the process of art, not just the finished product. Works housed at Daira range in price from Rs. 500 to Rs. 50,000 and thereabouts.

Daira collaborates with other cultural centers as well, especially with the Alliance Francaise and RASA (Ananda Shankar's dance school), and once even put up an exhibition of cartoons from France. The definition of art here is wide and constantly shifting.

The most recent addition to the centre's work is Disha, a school of art appreciation, that offers two short-term courses that teach people the fundamentals of art and how to read it, with discussions on line, colour, graphics, photography, design and even film appreciation. Students are varied, and come from all backgrounds and all ages. From IPS officers to stock exchange analysts, anyone who's interested will find willing company in practising and communicating art.