Chennai wildlife murals are being created across the city as the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) partners with the Environmentalist Foundation of India (EFI) to transform defaced walls into public spaces depicting local birds, wetlands, marine life and urban nature. The Wall.E – BlueGreen Chennai initiative is intended to beautify neighbourhoods, discourage illegal postering and littering, and encourage awareness of the city’s natural heritage.
The project has brought together local residents, young people and street artists to paint walls with images of Indian blackbucks, herons, moorhens, ducks, geese, Coppersmith Barbets and coastal ecosystems. Work has started in southern parts of Chennai, including Greenways Road, Adyar and RA Puram.
A mural featuring birds and other elements of local wildlife has been painted along a stretch of up to 500 metres near the Thiru Vi Ka bridge. The locations selected for the first phase place environmental imagery along everyday routes used by pedestrians, motorists and nearby residents, bringing representations of the city’s biodiversity into routinely encountered public spaces.
Arun Krishnamoorthy of EFI said the project had a dual purpose: improving neighbourhoods while educating citizens about the need to protect Chennai’s natural heritage. He said the murals would also help prevent the defacement of public spaces through illegal postering, graffiti and littering.
The next phase is expected to cover Sholinganallur, Tambaram, Keezhkattalai, Chetpet and Kovalam. Officials involved in the project said work in these areas is expected to be completed within the next month. The locations include parts of Chennai’s expanding southern urban belt as well as areas connected to the city’s wetland and coastal landscape.
The GCC plans to extend the initiative to additional zones after the first set of areas is completed, Commissioner G S Sameeran said. The corporation has also been painting school walls in several zones, according to an official from the GCC’s south zone. That official said murals showing local bird species, marine life and green landscapes could help build a sense of pride and ownership among residents and students and encourage them to keep public areas clean and green.
The initiative places community art within the corporation’s broader effort to reclaim and maintain public spaces. Its next confirmed milestones are the completion of murals in the identified locations over the coming month and the subsequent expansion of the programme to other GCC zones.
