Someone who has been putting an artistic firmament in the quiet hamlet of Chauddha Chuli is young Rohini Maiti. Where a group of children from local communities have been rediscovering local heritage and stories in a different and funky way. Thirty kilometres before Digha, take a left from a place called Henria and go through winding roads amidst lush-green paddy fields till you reach Chauddha Chuli, nestling amidst brooks and fields. This is where 24-year-old Rohini’s artistic space is, sprawled over an acre, replete with a creative workshop studio, several ponds, open spaces, and, of course, some residential huts.
The idea came to Rohini when she enrolled in a BFA programme at the Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida. As a school affiliated with United World Colleges and the Shelby Davis Foundation, they offered a programme to students named the Davis Projects for Peace. “I wrote out the grant and was delighted to have bagged it,” says Rohini, and brought the project - Future Arts and Learning Alternatives (www.fala.club) to her old village land in Purba Medinipur. The Turiyo Foundation (turiyofoundation.com) supported her locally as did the nearby schools and education centres.
Future Art and Learning Alternatives Programme is in its second year
Rohini, like many youngsters of her age, is worried about the growing learning crisis and is keen to bring a shift to the way children are being educated, especially in rural India. “This is why I started the Future Art and Learning Alternatives (FALA) Programme where we emphasise on using self-learning techniques, but had to deal with cattle trap negotiations to get the community kids into the project, This year we used a referral method. Existing FALA members were asked to nominate a friend who they felt would fit in with our philosophy and way of learning”, says Rohini, who finally worked with 20 children from the neighborhood. She was helped by the headmaster of Vidyasagar Nursery, Animesh Das, a Master’s degree holder in political science and rural administration, and together they held the kids together in the workshop space.
During a six-week intensive learning workshop in 2021, children were introduced to a multitude of different subjects such as mental and physical wellness, eco-art, visual communication through digital media, and renewable energies under engineering. As a follow-up to the on-ground intervention, the children were introduced to a virtual master class delivered by other facilitators from Florida to Mumbai. This year, in the summer of 2022, the programme entered its second year and Rohini used process-oriented art to further develop her framework of alternative learning. The narrative to the children was about rediscovering local heritage and translating the stories via art. They had to use a minimum of three mediums and the focus was on the process, where the journey of discovery and learning was more important than the end product. Rohini was helped by collaborators like Kunal Chaudhury (film-maker), Chirag Sharma (digital artist), Shimul Sarkar (sports management), and others.
Rohini with her team
“Our latest workshop this summer brought a more focused initiative to test my alternative learning model that engaged with process-oriented art and ideation, and we are also leaving the children with access to a permanent creative space filled with technology, art, and engineering resources. We are excited because our work is gaining recognition and now we got a chance to showcase the output at Art180 Gallery in Richmond at the end of September,” says the spunky arts entrepreneur.
She has also been invited to do a similar camp with children in Richmond and here’s hoping, the children will build something interactive on top of the work done here.