Art, Aesthetics and Communications:
Towards Conversations Across CulturesRationale
Art by residing in the crevices of collective consciousness has always played both a functional and creative role - one being inseparable from the other. Many in the Collective, especially those working with art and communications believing strongly that the purpose of art can not only be subservient to activism and that it has a purpose and life of its own that needs to be understood and worked with have helped to evolve a more challenging praxis that refuses the dominant reductionist logic of seeking a development relevance in art and aesthetics.
Aesthetics therefore for us is more than a mere creative adjunct to our activism and analyses- in which posters, films and audio visuals, theatre, song, creatively designed publications have always played a central and enhancing role. It always has had a logic and a lyric of its own that has defined for itself and in its own way the subversive and transformative role it can play within the Collective and within the larger social context.
It is in this context that the creative team of artists, filmmakers and critics associated with the Collective continue to sustain the aesthetic and communicative dimensions of all our work, be it through the various publications, graphic designs and films that are integral to our programmes and activities; or through the specific institutional forms some of these initiatives have taken.
Weaving Art and Aesthetics with Craft and Livelihoods
Conversations-a school after school
Crisologo Furtado, one of the oldest members of the collective, an artist working with painting, theatre and craft based activities with students and in the village communities in Goa for many years initiated Conversations, a novel school after school - primarily for migrant labour children, school drop outs and women.
Our Activities so Far
This idea of a school after school has developed out of the series of workshops we have been offering over the past many years to schools and colleges in different parts of Goa where the focus has been on developing skills that enhance and supplement the traditional school system; a system which focuses on theory and cultivating a mind set that equates education with white collar work, delegitimising working with hands as an activity for the uneducated.
While we have been working with regular schools, our focus has gradually been shifting to migrant labour children, children not doing well in schools as also school dropouts. The migrant children largely work in the market place selling plastic bags and working in restaurants as cleaners. We have also sought to draw in children along the coast affected by tourism. The age of the children ranges from 8-18 years.
The workshops have revolved around the following activities that are interconnected yet distinct:
i. Carpentry: Basic skills of carpentry are imparted when we begin by asking the children to express themselves through drawing, painting and theatre exercises that they transfer on to wood to create jig-saw puzzles. Lessons in basic mathematics are woven into the carpentry workshops, which focus on joinery. Firewood has been used for making furniture.
ii. Theatre: In theatre workshops we focus on body movement, balance and a sense of dependence on one another. The workshops used the oral histories of the participating children to develop scripts for small plays that reflected the environment from which they come. This leads to small productions where different skills can be utilised. For they are also taught how to make and erect sets using the different skills of carpentry, tailoring and craft.
iii. Paper Making: Using different kinds of waste we have conducted workshops on paper making and book binding and then in turn used the paper to make bags to replace plastic in the market.
iv. Bamboo and Cocowood Craft Workshops: We conduct bamboo workshops to develop traditional crafts and also develop a marketing system such that the craftspeople are independent and form their own co-operative with funds from the Government. The students are taught to make household furniture out of bamboo as well as art objects from coconut shells.
Apart from focusing on children we also conduct workshops for teachers from the existing school system on skills ranging from carpentry to weaving, linking to alternative ways of teaching regular subjects creatively.
The workshops are conducted at subsidised rates such that the program receives much support and enthusiasm as well as benefits the interests of the poor. The money we raise is spent on payment towards the skilled personnel such as masons and bamboo carpenters who work on the programs.
We have now been given a piece of land measuring six hundred sq meters in the community on which we have constructed of a building houses the actual school after school. The students themselves with the help of an architect have designed the classroom space.
The workshop will now be able to host up to ten children at a time. The focus will not only be on design and production so as to be able to earn, while learning but also training them to answer the regular board exams by teaching them routine subjects like botany, physics, languages et al through craft work itself.
Apart from offering regular workshops now to the children and to the teachers, the school now also plans to offer the following programmes:
i. The Open School Programme: Even while acquiring the skills that our workshops will be providing, this program will also seek to provide the poor and other marginal groups the opportunity to acquire degrees/certificates by enabling them to take the board exams through training offered by Conversations. The program is conceived as a collaborative effort of Conversations and Government aided schools. As a beginning, this year the first batch of children will be trained to answer two papers through the open school system. During this year we hope to get the registration from the education department of Goa for the school defined as a school after school.
ii. Expanding the skill training programme: We now have the space to also conduct photography and weaving workshops that will be part of the programmes for the coming year starting in August 2004 to May 2005. This year the skills workshops will consist of metal works and agriculture with Physics and Botany as our focus.
iii. Alternative technology-based production centres: A regular coconut shell unit is planned to be established. Towards this two young people have been given a stipend to work on bamboo and coconut /shell cocowood, do research work and develop designs that we will be able to market. At the moment we are building prototypes of bamboo houses and furniture and designing different kinds of toys, which we hope to market and sustain the school.
iv. Research: A research centre focusing on using traditional systems of knowledge to produce work in a contextualised manner has been conceived of towards supplementing as well enhancing, the work of the project.
v. Workshops: Apart from these residential workshops we will continue with our outreach work of conducting workshops on dance and body movement and theatre in the various schools and colleges across Goa. Ten workshops focusing on make up, set design, costume design, scripting and light design will be held in six villages.
vi. Theatre Productions: Following theatre workshops for the children from different schools we have been working with, we propose to do large theatre productions in which the participants would also include people from the traditional theatre “Khel”.
vii. Festival of Arts: From all this base work that has been going on over the past six years will come a festival of the arts in January 2006 that will also include a painting exhibition of Cris who is coordinating this project.
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