02/10/2026
As 8 Point Art Café turns twelve , it feels right to return to Gandhi—not as a statue of certainty, but as a question that continues to trouble and guide us.
Gandhian thinking can illuminate some of our most difficult crises,the climate emergency, the violence of genocide, the wounds of inequality and the quiet habits of indifference that allow them to grow. Gandhi asks us to look again at how we live, what we consume, whom we exclude and what forms of courage are required to resist violence without reproducing it.
His ashram was more than a place of retreat. It was a living experiment—where aesthetics met ethics, where politics entered everyday life, and where ecology was understood through simplicity, restraint and care. Perhaps the ashram today must be reimagined as a research centre,a space for thinking, making, listening and unlearning,a place where art can meet ecology, where beauty can sharpen conscience, and where politics can be reclaimed as a practice of responsibility.
At twelve , 8 Point Art Café too stands as such a space,small in scale, but open to large questions. May it continue to hold conversation, dissent, imagination and hope. May it remain a place where we gather not only to look at art, but to look more carefully at the world.
