CHENNAI: The wall of paintings, even at first glance, offers so much promise. From still life compositions to brilliant copies of the weeks of great artists (think Van Gogh’s A Starry Night), it had it all. Step in closer and the wall gives you more to take in — an oil-and-canvas merger of Hitler and the Joker, a dining table scene with a surrealistic element of a girl hunched in a cup and a brain ensconced in a bottle, a plea for Peace War written in pastels and bold blocks.
If the wall hasn’t wowed you already, that it was the work of students of classes 6 to 9 should do the deed. At the Akshar Arbol International School’s annual art exhibition, Ensemble 2020, there’s plenty to impress even the well-trained eye. While the skills and talent on display is enough to make you pause, that the children have the means to sketch their artistic journey and in the process be exposed to the world around them only makes the results even more awe-inspiring. The wall of paintings is only the first of the three installations put by the students this year.
Sudhanya Somakumar, who handles the subject for students from class 6 and higher, is all praise for the work her kids have managed to produce. “They get trained in art from class 6. In class 9, they get to select it as a major subject, if they are interested in pursuing it as part of their higher studies,” she explains. This is the result of the months of practice the students have put in. While guidance is always at hand, the children are given plenty of freedom and encouragement to dig deep and pick the theme they want to put to canvas.
Unity in diversity
This tidbit about the amount of involvement that comes from the children makes the next installation — Pillar of Discrimination — all the more impressive. The work is that of class 8 students, more of a culmination of three years’ work before they (most of them) drop the arts subject for Science and Maths.
The pillar bears portraits that are placecards for discrimination. Some of them you would recognise (the Afghani girl from the cover of National Geographic, the lesbian power couple behind the Section 377 verdict, and more) and others from everyday life around the world. While these pillars tackled the discrimination along the lines of race, gender and colour, the fourth stood as a symbol of hope. Bearing the pictures of the students themselves, photographed by one of their own, it stood as testimony to the fact that they too come from diverse backgrounds but have united for the purpose of education, art, friendship and simple pleasures. “We thought discrimination would be apt for the current state of affairs in the country,” she says.
There’s been plenty of learning from it too. “After we selected the pictures, we had a discussion about who these people were. Some of the students knew a few of them, the others didn’t,” she adds. The last element of the exhibition — The Dark Room of Invisible Voices — was yet another means to showcase how well the children combined the medium and the theme of choice. While glow-in-the-dark paint on the performing students highlighted more forms of discrimination, an audio on loop gave real life accounts of bias, prejudice and bigotry from different walks of life.
While art and performing arts have always been a means to make sense of the world around us and as a tool of rebellion and revolution, it is not often that children get to wield it with much authority. Sedition cases in other parts of the country notwithstanding, that the students here are allowed to explore art in the area of current times and climes is perhaps all we need. May be, another exhibition too.