CREATING IMAGES OR ILLUSIONS?

Workshop for Lab Pro Students at École Intuit.lab, 2015

I was invited to do a design thinking workshop by École Intuit Lab to work with visual communication students on image making. I focussed on the fact that an image is an extension of reality, but with an artistic take on it.

Using substitution as a theme, we created a new spin on commonplace objects. Each recipe used man-made objects that the world is dependent on, as ingredients.

A ‘Nut’ Crust pizza made from nuts and bolts for a manufactured life. Spaghetti ‘Woolly’ognese gratifying our confused patterns of eating. ‘Crumpled’ cookies inspired from web cookies made from newspaper maché. And yet while ordinary objects are the medium, it seems evident that the medium is indeed becoming the message.

SELF EXPRESSION THROUGH ART

Art workshops in collaboration with the LETS Project, funded by Tata Centre for Technology and Design. Himachal Pradesh, 2014

This fresh collection of art, experiences and rosy cheeked faces visually archives my journey as a traveling art facilitator to Khun village in Himachal Pradesh.These images were taken over a span of a fortnight. I worked with over 150 children from the Government Secondary School across different age groups covering a range of activities like pattern making, self portraits, craft, word chains and wall painting.

The purpose of the workshops was two-fold: turning children into content creators, by helping them create contextual and relevant storybooks about their own regions, and an attempt to change the attitude towards art as a taught subject in schools. Over a short span of time we were able to link these issues and make the local schools realize the importance of having a time allotted specifically for art along with having a well stocked library to encourage reading. We did this by simply democratizing the process of making a storybook.

WHEN STOP MOTION GIVES LIFE TO FOUND OBJECTS

In collaboration with Industrial Design Centre (IDC), IIT Bombay, 2014

What if a city could be animated with real characters?

Design students tend to spend a lot of time indoors, sketching on paper and screens. So I gave them a challenge to get outdoors - create magic from the mundane: discarded bottles, broken tables, chairs, tarpaulin sheets, anything from the dregs of the city. The students collaboratively created a quirky new cityscape from scrap, where real people animated this assembled world.

WORD OR IMAGE?

Workshop for Typoday 2015, at IDC, IIT Bombay

As a part of Typoday 2015, I facilitated a workshop where local phrases were translated into typographic installations constructed in open spaces. We played the role of lettering metaphorists who transform everyday objects like bright fabric and cutting chai glasses into letters which when hitched onto a space makes the word come alive. The first two groups used pixelations as a method for creating ‘Gup-Shup’ with glasses and biscuits, while the other two had to explore open spaces and write ‘Item’ and ‘Abey!’ with fabric. The results were quite interesting and led to the question: When does a word cease to exist and become an image? When staging typography in a space, the word carries context, so does the space and people interacting with it. The efforts were directed in juxtaposing meanings - the meaning of the word, with the quality of the materials. The takeaway being a new and suggestive pictorial language - communicated via interactive typographic installations.

SELF EXPRESSION THROUGH ART

Art workshops in collaboration with The Walking School Bus, (A Vancouver based NGO) in Uganda, Africa, 2016

This is a collection of rustic experiences that I’ve documented visually through my journey as a traveling art facilitator to Uganda, Africa. I worked with three multi-faith schools - Semai Kankungulu School and Hadassah Primary School at Mbale village and Jonathan Netanyahu Memorial School in Putti village.

Muddy roads, dense greenery, open air classrooms, cheeky children who pinch pencils and crayons for drawing and writing … all figured in my mixed bag of adventures. Conversations with locals, midday meals, bricked houses, local markets and wildlife safaris complete the bigger picture of how parts of Africa appear in my own visual memory.

These images were taken over a span of a fortnight; I worked with over 220 children from different age groups covering a range of activities like pattern making, drawing from observation, painting and textures, which will be a part of a contextual storybook based on coffee-farming in this region.

CREATING IMAGES THAT SURPRISE THE EYE

Workshop for Lab II students at École Intuit Lab Mumbai, 2018

I was invited to do a design thinking workshop by École Intuit Lab to work with visual communication students on image making. I focussed on the fact that an image is an extension of reality, but with an artistic take on it.

I began by telling students to disregard the ‘obvious’ and consider using new media like wool, sponge, eva-foam and clay to mimic the medium replacing reality. Food is especially difficult to represent visually so we chose to depict food using other media.

Depending on materials used visuals acquire a different meaning and objects are given a new life and role, with a touch of humour. A prime example of this is Kama-no-Sushi which literally translates to paper sushi (The Japanese word Kama means ‘paper’). By using unpredictable materials we generated a whole new visual language for a world where reality can be wrong, while illusions look true.

THE ART OF CREATING MEANINGFUL LETTERFORMS

Workshop for Typoday 2017, with IDC, IIT Bombay and University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka.

To celebrate indigenous typography of Sri Lanka, calligraphy artist Pradnya and I were invited for a workshop for Typography Day 2017 hosted by the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. Pradnya’s skills of designing letterforms paired with my hands-on knowledge of local materials led to typographic experiments rooted in exploring the principles of proportions, type weight and kerning for the Sinhalese script.

Using Sand and Kolum Powder as the primary elements we focused on juxtaposing the meaning of a word with the quality of the materials creating a new and suggestive pictorial language. For example the word 'Samsara' was sketched on sand as the word means ‘to exist and then get destroyed’.

SELF EXPRESSION THROUGH ART

Art workshops in collaboration with the Avalokitesvara Trust at Ladakh, Jammu & Kashmir, 2013

The Avalokitesvara Trust invited me to conduct workshops in village schools across the remotest parts of Ladakh, with the most breathtaking views. The trust also sets up small libraries with reading rooms in these regions, where books I had illustrated were part of the reading list. I worked as an art facilitator in the Hanle Gompa School, at Changthag on the Indo-China border, Siddhartha School, Stok village and Lamayuru Gompa School & Government School in Lamayuru.

Education consultant Riddhi Shah and I spent 2 months with 300 children from these schools. While she focussed on conversational english and math through games I worked on storytelling through art. We delivered sessions about cultures from other parts of India through different art activities. As a tribute to the region I spent a few hours every evening working on a wall mural which depicts their way of living. This wall is a part of a classroom in the Lamayuru Gompa School.

CAN SPACES SPEAK?

Workshop at IDC, IIT Bombay for M.Des students, 2013.

When does a word cease to exist and become an image? While a piece of text is a custodian of the printed word, image makers claim a that a picture is worth a thousand words. Today architects design fonts, photographers capture letters, font designers create installations - when words are pitted against images - this fluctuation and exchange within artistic disciplines makes room for more innovation than a isolated speciality would otherwise allow.

As a part of the Handmade Typography workshop in IDC, IIT Bombay we explored the phrase ‘Park Here’. A universally common sign was deconstructed to the essence of the word ‘Park’ as a noun and a verb. We spent time identifying obsolete spots as a canvas, the installation was created using run-down scrap furniture allowing people to ‘park’ themselves here and have a conversation over cutting chai. Here, there’s a transitional brink in a carefully arranged installation where people come and take centre stage lending a human touch making it truly tactile and tangible.

SELF EXPRESSION THROUGH ART

Art workshops in collaboration with The Walking School Bus, (A Vancouver based NGO) in Uttarakhand, 2018

As a part of the The Walking School Bus team (TWSB) I worked as a traveling art facilitator at Satkhol village, near Nainitaal in Uttarakhand. I set up a small library and art corner within the school. I hand-picked 350 beautifully illustrated storybooks sourced from across India for the library.

The primary purpose was to work closely with their art teacher to use storybooks effectively as a medium for teaching art. I worked with 200 children from two local schools; Himalayan Public School (HPS) Suyalgarh and Chopra. We used the Indian concept of ‘jugaad’ to focus on frugal innovation to address the enormous challenges they faced everyday. Despite abundant greenery, fresh air, clear water and picturesque views locals still face hurdles with regards to limited transport, drinking water, access to teaching materials across this terrain. We worked on developing local solutions to these problems. This led to the publication of a multilingual book called ‘How Himani solves a problem’ published by Pratham Books.