Hyderabad : Long before brands had logo guidelines, Hyderabad had hand-painted signboards. There was the chai stall’s name in bold enamel, the tailor’s lettering shaded by hand, a shop name with experimental typography, the cinema hoarding painted a storey high. On Saturday, October 10, those signs get the gallery treatment at Loca Frame & Art, at Spirit Connect from 6 PM.
The evening saw the following unfold …
• Handpainted Hyderabad: an exhibition of the city’s hand-made signage, the street typography residents pass every day and instantly draws a nostalgic memory.
• Live art by classic Indian movie-poster artists: painters from the hoarding era at work in real time.
• Vintage Canon cameras on display, tracing how the city has been framed over the decades.
• The launch of Concorde Zine’s new issue.
• A collective canvas that every guest adds to through the night.
• A fireside chat with actor and entrepreneur Rana Daggubati.
The curators, Hyderabad Citizens Mandakini Rao and Kishor Krishnamoorthi, cover both sides of the frame. Rao is a watercolour and mixed-media artist known for her urban sketchbooks and streetscapes and has spent years drawing Hyderabad at street level. Krishnamoorthi is a photographer who documents contemporary Indian art and the artists who shaped it, and he knows how an image outlives its moment. Together they’ve built an evening about how Hyderabad has always seen itself.
Every signboard on display was once somebody’s brand, painted by hand and made to last. So, the newest brand in the room hands over its own: Loca Loka bottles, painted by artists for the night, take their place in the exhibition alongside the signs.
Frame & Art is a chapter of Loca Season 1, the six-week season co-founded by Hyderabad. The premium award-winning global brand co-founded by Rana Daggubati, Anirudh Ravichander and Sree Harsha Vadlamudi brings the city’s creative communities who are obsessed with their craft under one roof in the first season for every weekend in October at by-invite only events, as it builds up towards a finale on Road No. 45 in mid-November celebrating the launch of the brand in the city.
For the desk
• When: Saturday, October 10, 2026, from 6 PM
• Where: Spirit Connect, Hyderabad
• Interviews: Mandakini Rao, Kishor Krishnamoorthi; Rana Daggubati on request
• Photo ops: live poster painting, the collective canvas, painted bottles, the zine launch
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