Creative Responses Art Workshop
Our Journey from Home project always wanted to get communities and young people interested in Indian Military history. So we held a two day creative response art workshop. This was great as we had young people that loved art and got to learn more about the history of South Asian Servicemen. The art workshop was overseen by our art director Sarina Kaur along with myself, and historian Paula Kitching.
On day one, we gathered to discuss what we had learnt on the research trips so far. The young people looked over their photographs that they had taken so see what they found the most interesting. In our research, we had learnt about the number of Indian Soldiers who had contributed to the war and gone on research trips to Brighton, Woking and London. We read poems and some letters to see what we could create for responses.
With the help of art director Sarina, the young people started researching what they wanted to draw. When we visited Brighton Pavilion we were not allowed to taken photographs inside, this got the young people thinking.
It was a great day as now everyone knew what they wanted to draw and create. There was such a range of ideas coming from the young people and the discussion of why this history is not taught in mainstream education.
On day two of the workshop, everyone got started on their artwork and asking questions on the subject. The main questions asked were ‘how the men must be feeling’ and ‘how they must have felt leaving their families behind’. The artwork that some of the young people created was really imaginative. Sahar, one of the students, drew a dragon (which was in the ballroom of Brighton Pavilion) onto top of Brighton Pavilion. While some of the other young people created self-made envelopes written in Urdu and Punjabi. The most common artwork produced was of the Chattri Memorial, when questioned the young people said that it was:
“important that what the soldiers did for us is not forgotten”
At the end of the workshop we discussed what we have created and it was great to hear how the research trips had even encouraged the young people to start researching into their own family history.
