We initiated the Art Outreach Project, a collaboration between Serendipity Arts Trust and Swaraj Art Archive by conducting our very first workshop this week.
23 art students from Genesis Global School, Noida aged 14-17 came to the archive on Tuesday.
The four-part session commenced with a basic introduction about the functioning of an archive followed by a curated walk in the form of an interactive and open-ended conversation about art using the current exhibition, Strī Avalekha, as a visual example pointing out the changes in trends in Indian art from the late 1800’s to the contemporary times.
They were informed about a few basic mediums, principles of aesthetics, styles of painting and some of the masters of Indian art.
After the talk, the students were divided into three teams for Spot-the-picture.
Each team was given an envelope with printouts of the works on display and clues using which they had to find certain works and circle them on the printout.
This activity aims to train the eye to develop an appreciation for art as they ended up looking at many works closely in the process of finding the selected ones.
Our resident artist, Harsh Nambiar, gave our audience a few pointers about the basics of drawing and a tour of his studio after Team B won Spot-the-picture.
The students then indulged in a friendly drawing competition conducted by Harsh and Sapna Sharma (conservator/printmaker). They were very impressed by some of the younger students and ended up picking 4 best works instead of the standard two. We have decided that all the works created during these workshops will be collectively exhibited at Swaraj Art Archive at the end of the year.
The 3 hour program came to an end with a fun photoshoot involving empty frames in the garden.
The Graphic Design batch of Wigan & Leigh College participated in the same programme the next day.
The Swaraj team had a really good time with both the batches and we hope to conduct workshops over the summer as well, improvising our program in the process, to ensure optimum benefit for the students.
