Portraits-report

It’s been over a year since we worked with the students of the Gyandeep School, in our neighborhood. I would meet the students running out of school every now and then. They repeatedly asked me about when we would conduct workshops with them again. Finally after all these months we found a tangible project to work on with them. I met Hannah. Hannah Matthew is based in Delhi for a year, and has worked in photography since graduating in Fine Art. Since being in the city, she's been coordinating photographic exhibition with Sunil Gupta and Radhika Singh, and previously was archiving at the Lee Miller Archives in England. As a photographer she has also had a history of running workshops in photography. Hannah gladly consented to help conduct a photography workshop for the School.
18 children from grade 4 and 5 were given divided into teams of two. The teams chose names of animals and birds for their identity, peacock, eagle, lion, bear, crocodile, elephant, snake, cheetah and tiger namely.
Hannah briefed them on the basics of portraiture and handling of the cameras. They were asked to click portraits of their partners. A week after, the results of the camera escapade were shown to the students. Each selecting 2 images that they clicked and liked the most.
For the following class we shall provide them with material to make collages on the prints of the pictures selected by them.

20th April 2007

The journey for us has been both exciting as well as challenging. The students have certainly come a long way, since we began working with them. Initially, much to our frustration all they would draw would be an apple, a hut or a tree. The shapes of which had been etched in their memory such, that all drawings looked alike. The collages produced by them now are a proud proof of their minds and hands liberating to express fresher ideas. Using wool, color pencils, chalk, paper and a variety of material they have created what I can call “mater-pieces”.

2nd May 2007

Aastha Chauhan