The idea for the residency project, a part of the gallery's plan to set up a 360-degree arts platform, came up in October 2008 when 'we were looking at activities for the lean summer months that don't see much of art-related events', said Mukesh Panika, director of the Arts.I gallery.

'We decided to use the gallery space as studios and conduct a residency programme for the first time. We wanted to explore group dynamics of artists working together and conduct a thematic experiment. CP emerged as the theme as it is (one of) the capital's oldest business districts,' Panika told IANS.

A central collaborative art work of Connaught Place by 25 artists is a 70-foot-diameter circular layout of CP with three concentric layers of art depicting the outer circle, inner circle and central square.

Radial art panels fan out of the circle showing the roads leading out of CP. Hanging on top is a fleet of 'happy cars' suspended by strings. The cars have wings and tails.

The nameless and faceless population of Connaught Place ride an installation of a fancy iron rickshaw painted white by Megha Joshi, while a canvas compares the din of CP to the sound of the sea heard through a conch shell.

Medico-turned artist Sanjay Sahai gives CP a rural feel on his canvas that shows 'a tea stall and life in the underbelly of CP early in the morning'.

Artist Satadru Sovan, who calls his works cyber-scapes -- a psychedelic style which draws from images in cyber space -- shows CP as a land of 'cool dudes, hot chicks and flying birds floating in waves of bright neon colour bands through the huge white art-deco pillars of the inner circle'.

'The pillars are phallic symbols and my fantasy figures float through them as in cyber-space narrating stories about CP. My works have been inspired by a Facebook group known as Connaught Facebook that packs in information about the capital's most happening stretch,' Sovan told IANS.