Pooja took the India Street Lettering project to Lucknow’s leading cultural festival through a public lecture that examined the multifarious reasons why she documents letterforms on public signage. She illustrated her motivations, which ranged from a curiousity for local histories to an interest in the constraints of different materials and techniques, and building typologies of letterforms to memorialising diversions from canonical forms, using her vast collection of lettering photographs from around the country, and from Lucknow, in particular.

She was joined on stage by Mohd. Rafi Sahab, a sign painter from Machli Mohal, who gave a live sign-painting demonstration, shared stories from his four-decades long painting career, and answered audience questions with her.