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Dear Friends of Artreach,
We are thrilled to share with you our many activities over the course of the past six months, as we continue to reach more children and young people in care, and also in remote parts of the country. As India experiences a second wave of the pandemic, we are reminded everyday in our workshops of the immense potential of the arts - in communicating openly, expressing our feelings, sharing joy and new skills, and exploring the world together with innovative methods!
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ARTREACH-KNMA TEACHING FELLOWSHIPS
In November 2020 we launched the first phase of our online Teaching Fellowships with KNMA. Artist educators Aruna Manjunath, Pragya Bhargava and Lokesh Khodke have led fortnightly workshops over four months with Rainbow Homes, Udayan Care and Karm Marg respectively. Children have learnt puppet making, explored relationships between art and astro-physics and also skilled themselves in book-making and visual storytelling.
As part of these Fellowships, artists Gargi Chandola, Umesh Kumar and Nilanjana Nandy joined in to lead one-off sessions to further participants’ explorations.
The Open Call for phase 2 of Online Artreach-KNMA Teaching Fellowships went out last week. Three new fellowships will be given to three artists to support workshop series with care homes. If you are an artist with experience of teaching formally or informally do apply!
Read complete application details here
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Images from workshops led by Pragya, Lokesh and Aruna as part of Artreach-KNMA Teaching Fellowships.
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MURAL AND PARK RENOVATION AT TONK
Artist Akshay Sethi joined the Artreach team in leading a week long Intensive at a government school in Dhauli Village, Tonk, Rajasthan. Together with over forty children and young people they painted large scale murals and transformed the school park with recycled tyres and metal. The murals depict dreams and aspirations voiced by the children, especially the girls, and also their imaginative plants and animals. This project was in partnership with iPartner India.
Watch the heartwarming testimonials of participants here
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"On the first day, when we were asked by didi and bhaiya what we liked, I shared with them that I wish to kick a football wearing shorts and sports shoes. And now my wish has come true. There is a painting of a girl kicking a football on our school wall. I never thought I could paint, now I feel like I can become a famous painter."
- Rachna, class 9th
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ONLINE WORKSHOPS WITH NIRVAIR, LOKA, TARA AND TEACH FOR INDIA
Artreach team has led multiple series of workshops with different organisations over recent months, including:
NIRVAIR, an NGO that works with children and women displaced by the 1984 Delhi riots, now living in Trilokpuri.
LOKA, our partnering school in rural Bihar: after a gap, we were happy to reach out for two days of intensive book-binding sessions.
TARA: alumni of our Teaching Fellowship continue to be very engaged with our sessions, learning how to draw original comics and paint watercolour landscapes.
Delhi Government Schools: we have led three sessions with Delhi’s government school children in partnership with Teach for India.
We would like to thank our volunteers - Rama Sundar, Neha Jain, Priyamvada Chaudhary, Sudiksha Patil - for contributing towards our online workshops through leading exciting workshops and researching for modules!
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Images from workshop on 'Still Life and Object Drawing' at Nirvair NGO, Trilokpuri and a workshop on 'Observations and Book-Binding' at Loka School, Bihar.
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"I learned free drawing. Movement on paper. Hand and mind were free. Normally, in our exercise books, we write in one way, use the pen in one way. Through the warming up exercises I made new movements with my hand and the pencil that I normally never make.
At some point it was like my hand and the pencil became one; like I was no longer holding a pencil but my hand was drawing."
- Madhu, from LOKA
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AKSA: ARTREACH COMMUNITY ARTS PROJECT
In Ranti village, Bihar, contemporary Madhubani artist Avinash Karn has initiated AKSA, an Artreach Community Arts project with young women of marginalised communities in and around Ranti. Meeting regularly at Avinash’s studio, they have been experimenting with various media and telling stories from their life experiences, while also learning about new methods, artists and writers. A space for open dialogue is shaping up and we are excited to see it grow with the support of an upcoming grant from SEEMA KOHLI STUDIOS.
We are thankful to Ralco tyres for creating four short films featuring women artists from Chandidih village, Jharkhand who were part of Avinash's previous Artreach Community Arts project, Udbhav.
Watch their inspiring stories here
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In this painting above, Sajiya paints herself as a fighter jet pilot, as her parents pray for her safety.
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"It has been an extraordinary experience for me working with these highly enthusiastic girls. We have worked for almost three months and I have been gradually guiding them - from line drawing, techniques, compositions to developing ideas through discussion on various issues. Their works come from self-expression - their dreams, their thoughts - for which they did write-ups, extracted points out of them, and sketched them and finally painted onto paper."
- Avinash Karn
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GIFT INSPIRATION CAMPAIGN
We kicked of 2021 with a crowdfunding campaign and are so grateful for the overwhelming support and trust in our work - thank you all for being a part of the Artreach journey: Anjana Mangalagiri, Alsison Giles, Alissa Seth, Avantika Malhautra, Claire Lamont, Hannah Gardner, Ila Reddy, Farah Khan, Janhavi Prasada, Lee Fullarton, Manju Dalmia, Medha Singh Kochhar, Radhika Chopra, Nandita Chopra, Penny Richards, Preetha Rajaram, Tasneem Mehta and Yamini Atmavilas.
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