Children are locked into screens and are driven by set rules of learning. They are moving away from the habit of reading books, watching art and theatre or creating something of their own. To bring back these habits to the children of the tech era, art therapy specialist Madhuja Banerjee and theatre director Abanti Chakraborty organised a five-day summer camp at Arts Acre for kids.
The camp that was held from May 23 to 27, saw a group of children aged between 4 and 12 take part in various fun and learning activities. Each day of the camp was divided into two sessions — art and drama.
Learning through art
Some of the artwork made by the children
Madhuja Banerjee discovered the benefits of art therapy during the pandemic and ever since she has been imparting others with the valuable knowledge. She conducts art therapy sessions with adults frequently but this time she wanted to do something for children. But more than therapy, she wanted children to see artwork of popular artists and learn while having fun with colours.
“While children are taught skills, the practice of watching art is not very popular in our society. Similarly, children are encouraged to write words, phrases and then sentences but the habit of reading is not cultivated. That is why for this summer camp, I chose to introduce them to popular artists first before diving into the art form,” said Banerjee.
The focus on the first day was on Kandinsky and abstract art. On the second day, children learnt about popular culture and pop art, focusing on Andy Warhol. Followed by Rabindranath and his imaginary creature doodle on the third day and Jamini Roy’s patachitra style mask-making was introduced to the children on the fourth day.
The summer camp let the children experiment with their imagination without setting any boundaries. “I wanted to make them imaginative, independent and knowledgeable,” said the art therapist.
Madhuja Banerjee with the young artists
Buddhaditya Chowdhury, a Class IV student of Apeejay School, thoroughly enjoyed his time at the art workshops. The little boy gushed: “I love painting but I am not allowed to use watercolours at home so I am enjoying it here.”
Along with several art forms like abstract, modern, pop, national (Indian), children also discussed ideas like racism, equality and nationalism.
Flow of imagination with theatre
Abanti Chakraborty holds the drama session for the young ones
Abanti Chakraborty, a theatre director who recently came up with Binodini Opera, received a huge response from parents enquiring about drama workshops for their kids. Chakraborty, who has not worked with children for a long time, decided to collaborate with Madhuja Banerjee and organise a camp solely for children.
“The aim was to make children confident because performance is within them already. Everything they do from jumping, running, playing everything is a performance. You can’t teach them to perform in a four-day workshop. So the idea was to have a lot of fun while they build their confidence and concentration,” said Chakraborty, who made the children engage in fun activities to strengthen their focus.
Twelve-year-old Shreya Dhanuka of Sushila Birla Girls School has keen interest in theatre and is also a part of the drama club in school. When Shreya heard about the summer camp, she immediately signed up for it. “I wanted to learn new things that would help me improve my performance. Also, it is a good way to spend the summer vacation apart from visiting grandma’s house.”
From Jamini Roy and Rabindranath Tagore to Kandinsky and Warhol, kids pick up the best at five-day Arts Acre workshop
Chakraborty made the children write a monologue on their favourite character/superhero. Children picked up characters like Doraemon, Spiderman, Artemis, Obi-Wan Kenobi etc. “Children wrote their own dialogues for the monologue. They had all the freedom to let their imagination flow and their creativity surprised me,” said Chakraborty.
On the final day of the workshop, children performed the monologue and their artwork were displayed at a gallery in Arts Acre for the visitors.