Talks

Moving Worlds: Why the Teaching Fellowship?

11 June 2020

In its fifth year now, KNMA has been supporting the Teaching Fellowship’s year-long program and exhibition since 2016. It is a pioneering intensive foundation course in art for young people in care. Every year an artist is selected through an open call, to mentor and work with 20 artistically inclined young adults from a Delhi-based care home. 

‘Why the Teaching Fellowship?’ In recognition of the current moment of crisis and the pedagogical challenges it presents to us, KNMA and Artreach organised a special discussion with artist-educators on mentoring, creating spaces for learning, particularly in care-home spaces and share the journey of the Artreach-KNMA Teaching Fellowship, which is now running in its fifth year. Panelists for the online conversation are Atul Bhalla (Artist and Educator), Kristine Michael (Artist and Educator), Ita Mehrotra (Director, Artreach India), Tahsin Akhtar (Artist and Educator), Basanti Caroline Roubin (Director, Tara Homes) and the moderator Akansha Rastogi (Senior Curator, KNMA).

This panel discussion is a collateral event of ‘Moving Worlds’, Artreach-KNMA’s fifth Teaching Fellowship exhibition with TARA Homes. The exhibition and the fellowship was conceptualised and led by artist Tahsin Akhtar. Eighteen participants between the ages 11 to 17 were selected by TARA Homes based on interest and aptitude. Over the course of the programme, from July 2019 to May 2020, Tahsin held weekend workshops on observation drawing, collage, still life, making flip-books, character design, clay modelling, animation and nature studies. During the lockdown, workshops over ZOOM inspired students to create introspective portraits, and paintings inspired by the world’s greatest artists. The group had a curated walk through and workshop at the India Art Fair in February 2020 where they witnessed a wide variety of multi-media art from around the world. 

The Teaching Fellow was guided by a distinguished panel of artist educators and curators: Atul Bhalla, Kristine Michael, Susanta Mandal, Vandana Kothari, Deeksha Nath, Anni Kumari, Sonam Chaturvedi, Megha Madan and Akansha Rastogi.