India's First Graffiti Hyperlapse

In 2016, six artists, a 130 by 25-foot wall, and seven days of spray cans came together at IIT Techfest in Powai, Mumbai. It was Asia's largest science and technology festival, and what came out of that week became India's first graffiti hyperlapse. The project was curated by Wicked Broz.

The Wall

Stretching 130 feet across and rising 25 feet high, the canvas was one of the largest walls ever handed to graffiti artists in India. The theme was space exploration and futurism, painted live across seven days as tens of thousands of Techfest attendees watched the mural grow in real time.

The Artists

Five artists built the wall: NME, Lobster, Mooz, Zake, and Brazilian artist Julio Torquetti (known as Buyu). Indian street art talent alongside international energy. Each claimed a section of the narrative: robots, astronauts, cosmic warriors, and cartoon characters that turned a campus wall into an intergalactic world.

The Grind

Working at that scale came with its own set of problems. The heat was relentless. The wall was 130 feet wide and 25 feet tall, and we had only two scaffolding units to cover the entire stretch. Every few hours, we had to physically break down the platforms, shift them across, and reassemble. It sounds like a small thing until you have done it ten times in the afternoon sun. The artists absorbed it and kept painting.

The Film

Cinematographers Bhumesh Das and Jonnas Moirangthem of EMA Films captured the entire seven-day process in a hyperlapse, compressing days of sketching, layering and colour-filling into a single fluid sequence. It was the first time something like this had been done for Indian street art. Seven days of work, collapsed into minutes.

Julio put the finishing touches on his section as the festival wound into its final days. IIT Techfest draws over 150,000 visitors each year and is one of Asia's biggest cultural events. Having a mural of this scale painted live in front of that crowd made the whole thing feel less like a commission and more like a shared moment. Something tens of thousands of people watched happen, start to finish.

That wall set the tone for what came next. Wicked Broz went on to curate the main wall at IIT Techfest every year after that, all the way until 2022. Each edition brought new artists, new themes, and a wall that kept getting bigger.