30 women from Indore with 2,44,446 nails makes World's largest nail mosaic.

Indore’s Mariyam Wajid Siddiqui along with her team of 30 girls has made an incredible artwork with 2,44,446 nails in a period of 10 months. The artwork depicts the era of the Second World War in which a woman is sitting in a carriage and two men, driving it. The art piece is made by hammering iron nails on the PVC sheet and is 64 feet in height and 24 in width. What makes the art piece all the more unique are unconventional and abstract nuances used to tell the story. For instance, there is no head and foot of the train driver as well as no steering in the car.

The message that the artists want to convey through this is that every man has the same challenge and he or she eventually walks in the same direction to reach the same path as others. Since almost 2 million soldiers lost their lives in the Second World War, 20,44,446 nails have been used in the artwork; each nail bearing the tragedy of the soldiers and his families.

This artwork gives us a message that war is not the solution to any issue. Although 200 artists were required to create this artwork, Mariyam and her team of 30 girls who have been selected from social media platforms completed the artwork with limited resources. Mariyam’s husband Artist Wajid Khan, who is a world-renowned artist himself played a pivotal role in shaping this task gave the team a month’s training to make the nail art. The girls that made Mariyam’s vision a reality come from different parts of India and out of the 30 girls only three belonged to the field of art, the rest of them worked on artwork for the first time. Reminiscing the experience of working on the piece, Riddhi Jain says, “My life has changed so much and I never thought that I had such a good artist within  me.” Another artist Uzma adds, “I am a doctor, and I accidentally came to this workshop but my life’s outlook has changed now. I now know my calling.”

One of the participants, Divya Soni is the mother of a 1-year-old child. She worked 12 hours daily while her husband, Arvind Soni sat in the car taking care of the kid. Working 9 am to 9 pm, she fed and spent time with the family in the break after every shift. Arvind patiently waited and managed accordingly.

Ritu Patel, an architecture student got to know about the workshop through social media posts. Frustrated and confused from the career, she joined the workshop and learned patience, management and her capability of work which really helped in her professional life.

Rumaisa Arwa said that she got to know a lot about different religions and different fields while working with them and enjoyed a lot with them.

The overall size of the artwork is 24 feet x 64 feet.

There is a total of 54 panels that formed the artwork in which nails were hammered on 33 panels.

The PVC  panels were bought from Korea which has a life of 50 years. To install this huge artwork Company from Bangalore and Bombay were hired. Each nail is of 3.85cm length and 0.3g weight. 20,44,446 The number of total nails is used in this artwork.  The inception of the concept started around 10 months ago and effort to break the world record was carried by engaging 6 days (18th August to 23 rd August) continuously on camera for 53 hours 25 minutes at Goyal Green, Indore. After every 4-hour participants were given a break of half an hour. After getting injuries also, they did not stop them from working.

List of Team members who created this incredible artwork:

1) ARTIST MARIYAM WAJID SIDDIQUI, Indore (M.P.)

2) UZMA KHAN, Indore (M.P.)

3) LAREB KHAN, Indore (M.P.)

4) SHAHEEN SHAIKH, Kolkata

5) SALEHA KHAN, Indore (M.P.)

6) AYUSHI JAIN, Gairatganj, (Dis. Raisen), (M.P.)

7) HARSHNA PARIHAR, Neemuch, (M.P.)

8) SONIKA MEHTA, Indore, (M.P.)

9) RIDDHI JAIN, Mandleshwar, (M.P.)

10) RITU PATEL, Begamganj (Dis. Raisen), (M.P.)

11) YASHICA CHOUDHARY, Indore, (M.P.)

12) IRAM KHAN, Indore, (M.P.)

13) IMRAH KAUSAR ANSARI, Indore, (M.P.)

14) SHIVANGINI SAXENA, Indore, (M.P.)

15) PIXY SAXENA, Indore, (M.P.)

16) NEHA BALA, Indore, (M.P.)

17) DIVYA SONI, Ashta (Dis. Sehore), (M.P.)

18) SONA KANUNGO, Indore, (M.P.)

19) FATIMA QURESHI, Indore, (M.P.)

20) RUMAISA ARWA, Indore, (M.P.)

21) ISHA AFIRAH, Indore, (M.P.)

22) NAIMA KHAN, Indore, (M.P.)

23) SONAL SONI, Sonkatch d(Dis. Dewas), (M.P.)

24) ATOOFA ZAHID ANSARI, Indore, (M.P.)

25) NEHA RINJWE,  Itarsi, (M.P.)

26) NIGHAT, Delhi

27) SUMBUL IRAM ANSARI, Indore, (M.P.)

28) HUSNA SIDDIQUI, Indore, (M.P.)

29) SEJAL SWARNKAR, Indore, (M.P.)

30) RASHI JAIN, Bhopal, (M.P.)

31) SHUDDHA JAIN, Mumbai