The Educational Outreach Project – April 2005

The Citizens' Foundation Schools - VASL

Every year in Vasl, we try to extend the impact of the Residencies and the presence of the visiting artists by creating links with other art Institutions in Karachi and Lahore. In the past, we have organized slide shows and lectures, demonstrations and workshops with the International artists. In this way we are able to create a dialogue between artists and the community at large.

Account by Auj Khan - participating artist
The Educational out reach was a two-day program conducted by the Vasl artists-in-residence at two different locations of the Citizens Foundation Schools. The objective was to educate the kids with some basic idea of what it means to do art and what it means to be an artist in this society.
The first few moments were spent talking to the group on what kind of meanings did the word ‘art’ or ‘fun’ in Urdu have for them. They dazzled us with their responses and soon the whole room turned into an active exchange on the subject!
A mural and a story-based exercise were carefully chosen as two separate activities for each day. The mural consisted of each student working from a given reference on his or her individual boards, which were numbered, to be put together at the end, to make up the final image.
The story-based activity required each student in the group to stretch a story with their imagination in a sequence. This would result in a visual narrative that would read as a book when put together. The students chose to place text along with their poster painted imagery and had great fun seeing their story realize visually.
There was a sense of accomplishment when the students saw their efforts forming a large mural, as the images were put together.
Probably this helped to reinforce the ideas of working together as a team to accomplish bigger goals.