KATHMANDU: Doors may mean different things to different people. Taking the ‘open door’ as a concept, Siddhartha Art Gallery has come up with a series of workshops centerd around this idea.

Under this project, the gallery invites senior artists, painters, people living with HIV/AIDS, Dalits or single women, women in prison and people from Blue Diamond Society for open dialogue, and they paint the doors based on what has been discussed, while the poets and writers pen down their thoughts.

The third workshop was organized on April 1. While the painters were at their work, a group of poets were busy writing their impressions about the door paintings. And the painters were seen taking up a pen to write a poem.

“Who knows a poet might discover a painter in himself/herself or a painter will discover a poet in himself/herself,” said Sanjeev Uprety, a speaker at the programme.

Experts also gave a talk on the religious symbolism, mythological, and mathematical significance of the door.

The objective of the project is to make a collection of 108 door paintings that will be exhibited from May 5 at the Siddhartha Art Gallery for sale, and to publish a coffee table book. The best poems created during the workshops will be composed to produce CD albums.