Connecting the World with Creativity
From the mountains of Meghalaya at the Indo-Chinese border to the beaches of California, Vita Pictura’s team has seen it all.
Everyone wants to travel the world and do what they want, but for many people, this remains just a dream. This is a story of how a group of friends traveled half of the world, visiting on the way two incredible Indian Music Festivals and enjoying some art-making with friends in California.
It has been a trip of six weeks, starting as usual in Tallinn, and including some incredible filming at two major Indian festivals, and filming videos with our musician friends in California.
MEGHALAYA, INDIA
It’s been a special feeling being at an Indian festival in the mountains of Meghalaya. We did lots of hiking, and a bit of filming on the way. The festival had four stages and we managed to cover it all with our little team.
Some from the team discovered new music, including Indian DJ Ritviz who got some new fans in Finland and Estonia.
Another memorable performance for the production team was by Raja Kumari from Los Angeles. Another interesting discovery for us was Shubha Mudgal with her great performances of Hindustani classical music and Indian popular music.
The road then led us to Calcutta and Bangkok, where we had a day to relax and try a local bottle of rum, which was actually really good!
CALIFORNIA
From Thailand, we flew with a stop in Hong Kong, to Los Angeles, California. It was great to see our friends, who’d stayed in Estonia before. It was a lovely commune in Hollywood where we were staying — creative and inspiring. A lot was coming from the people in the house where we stayed and we tried to channel the energy through our videos. The whole team immersed in the local art scene, guided by our brilliant friends Hennessy, Maurice Gaye a.k.a. Moeazy, Estonian hip hop artist and producer Mick Moon, Somali-American singer, songwriter and musician Rayzak, including artist Infanine and so many more creative individuals. As one may imagine, art and experimentation was flowing through the whole house in the weeks we’ve been staying there.
The fact that we stayed in the house with the local artists and creatives made us immerse in the local art scene much faster and on a whole new level. There was a music studio in the house, and, of course, everyone was making music and trying out new sounds.
“You get to see true life through a camera.” — Karolina Lahti from Vita Pictura mentioned. Karolina then added:
“We showed people naturally, how they are, and not fake. People were open and easy to work with. Music video was about love overall. It was nice in the end — everyone was natural, international crew came together to make something fresh, and it was all topped with musical adventures in India.”
Coming from Northern Europe, a lot of us understood that people in Los Angeles are very supportive of each other and are not afraid to try new things. People are nice, and this creates a feeling of allowing yourself to express how you want to, without worrying too much of what others would think, which might often hinder an artist from trying something new. This allows for experimentation — trying new things, falling and getting back up again, without being worried about judgment or failures.
WAY HOME
Then we went to Goa, India, for a relaxing night, in order to take a break from traveling for the first night during these six weeks of flying and backpacking around South and South-East Asia, and California.
Then it was Pune, India. Three hours’ time after finishing the filming of NH7 festival in Pune, we took a couple of tuk-tuks, managed to lose and find each other, but we made it just in time safely.
Everyone was dead, Karolina fell asleep in the airport and everyone got very tired. After around 30 hours of flying and transferring through different airports between Pune, Delhi, and Helsinki, we finally arrived back home in Estonia and Finland.
The whole team is looking forward to more trips like this!
