AOD × Pepsi Street Kala 2.0

Pepsi Street Kala 2.0 brought Sri Lankan art, music and food together at Excel World on 4 July, and AOD joined Pepsi to put emerging local artists in the middle of it all. The exhibition gave artists a shared starting point, Pepsi, and room to take it in their own direction.

Seeing the work together was part of the appeal. A brand most people recognise at a glance becomes an interesting creative brief when several artists get to decide which parts of it to play with. Side by side, those interpretations gave festivalgoers a chance to notice the choices each artist made and see how much personality could come through a familiar subject.

The collaboration also gave the artists a chance to show their work to people who might be discovering it for the first time. A festival audience brings all kinds of tastes into the same space, so a piece that caught someone’s eye could become part of what they remembered about the day.

The exhibition was part of a day out in Colombo, alongside live entertainment and food. You could come for the music, wander into the exhibition and leave having discovered a local artist whose work you wanted to see more of.