ARTREACH
KNMA
TEACHING FELLOWSHIPS ONLINE
December 2020 - April 2021
PRAGYA BHARGAVA
with Udayan Care
LOKESH KHODKE
with Karm Marg
ARUNA MANJUNATH
with Rainbow Homes
scroll
Teaching Fellows 2020-21 (First Phase)
Welcome to the exhibition of artworks by children and young people from Udayan Care, Karm Marg and Rainbow Homes!
These paintings, drawings, booklets, puppets and other creations were all made over workshops led by Teaching Fellows online, during the COVID-19 lockdown. Even online, it was amazing to see how much sharing, fun, exchange of art skills and storytelling was possible. While the world closed up and schools were shut, these art sessions opened many windows.
We hope you enjoy this exhibition and do leave your feedback for the young creators -
Aarti, Anjali, Khushi, Nihal, Krishna, Deep, Vijay, Shivam,
Gulnahar, Sonia from Udayan Care
Abhishek, Vishal, Simran, Siddartha, Debraj, Alka, Vishal C, Sohan, Pooja, Umresh, Shama, Khushi from Karm Marg
Asma, Nargis, Jimadi, Nazrul, Irshad, Rakesh, Muskaan B, Shahzaadi, Sahana, Muskaan from Rainbow Homes
SPACE EXPLORATION
WORKSHOPS IN ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS USING ART
Over the course of Pragya’s workshop series, participants from Udayan Care homes learnt perspective drawing, crafting objects like rockets and installations made out of simple paper and cardboard, composition and abstraction; through the course of their workshop series a common thread of science learning and astrophysics tied everything together. This led to imaginative explorations of outer space, aliens, new planets and what those could be imagined to be. Pragya brought in artists and resources such as looking at the works of Kandinsky, exploring soundscapes on the NASA website, books like The Little Prince and even films like Star Wars.
'It was fulfilling to see the participants break through traditional modes of thinking to express radical ideas for
their novel universes.
Their thoughts on the problems in contemporary society and solutions for a more utopian universe was a marker of success. There was also significant development in expressing abstract concepts as we moved from pattern making for planets terrains to painting sounds from outer
space and visualising dark matter.'
- Pragya Bhargava
'कहते-कहते कहानी बन गई!'
WORKSHOPS IN SHORT STORY WRITING AND ILLUSTRATING
Participants from Karm Marg care home learnt to tell stories in various techniques and ended up with projects such as creating their first eight page books with Lokesh's workshops. Lokesh often brought in the beautiful surroundings at Karm Marg as it is uniquely located outside of Delhi among open fields, into the workshops as points of inspiration. They closely observed trees around their open green campus to tell the story of those trees, then created original characters and slowly shaped larger visual narratives. All the while Lokesh brought in various illustrated stories and artwork that could inspire children to imagine their own.
'Working with the children from Karm Marg through these workshops was a very rich experience for me. If I bring to notice something in particular from it, that will be the experience of online sessions. Due to the pandemic the online mode of teaching is being normalised without considering that most of the children in our country do not have proper access to the internet or mobile phones/laptops. One of the realities that hit me at this workshop was how 12 kids were sharing one screen kept in front of them! But the way they navigated through this limitation is amazing! Throughout the six months they kept the energy levels so high that I forgot I was sitting at such a distance. The time I spent with them in this workshop is extremely valuable to me. और फिर इस सबके बीच धीरे-धीरे कहते-कहते कहानियां, चित्र और छोटी-छोटी किताबें बनती गई।'
- Lokesh Khodke
DIBBA
WORKSHOPS IN PUPPET-MAKING, STORYTELLING, AND THEATRE
Looking at illustrated folktales, picture books and traditional shadow puppetry, participants from Rainbow Homes were encouraged to develop short stories and myths centred around their own characters. These characters were then made into paper puppets. They used materials like textiles, paper and patterned painted backgrounds in their narratives. Games and icebreakers of various kinds made the workshops engaging and interactive and participants were brimming with ideas - making gibberish songs and collaborative tales together.
‘The children involved in this project were one of the most independent bunch I have worked with. They did a beautiful job with building the stories and making the puppets. I barely found myself over-explaining instructions or pushing them to do anything. As teenagers working from various spaces with glitchy internet access, I never saw them flinch to retry a process, some even retried connecting their zoom call multiple times over the same session. I have a special place for this entire process and for the children making it a memorable one.’
- Aruna Manjunath
