Experiments with natural colors to introduce tribal children to Art – A case study on Kerala’s ‘Karimbu’ Art Project

Community Engagement Goals

•   The Goal of the Project’ Karimbu’ was to engage the children through Art and build awareness of the surrounding nature

•   The creative goal of the project is to create awareness of Art among tribal children and learn to express themselves.

Challenges

Managing kids was a big challenge. The initial interaction with the kids was a hiccup. A breakthrough was possible after devising interactive methods like playing games and narrating stories. The artists thus created a comfortable environment to engage with the kids and take the project work forward.

As these kids have no access to the outer world and had not held a crayon or a color pencil before, it was a challenge to make them understand what Art is.

Methods of Community Participation/Engagement

The artists of Trespassers wanted to understand how the children welcomed the concept of Contemporary Art, even when they had not used colors before. They started by making them aware of colors and how to obtain them from their natural surroundings. For example, the yellow color was obtained from turmeric powder, and the red color was obtained when turmeric powder was mixed with slaked lime. The black color was obtained from charcoal. Different kinds of leaves were used to get different shades of green. The leaves from the teak tree were used to obtain different shades of red.

Experimenting with colors turned out to be an enriching experience for the kids. The excitement and possibility of obtaining colors from the natural surroundings helped the kids probe more into the world of colors.

After obtaining the colors, the kids were taught to paint with a brush. They were instructed on how to paint, advising them on tiny details like making sure to wash the tip of the paintbrush before moving to another color.

After the initial stages of training, the children were directed to paint the walls of their school. The concept of space was taught to them, where they were instructed not to stick to one side of the wall and use the entire wall for the painting. They were made aware of how to work as a team.

Outcome

The motivation behind doing this visual art camp was to understand what the kids come to make of their understanding of Contemporary Art. They were introduced to a whole new world of colors alongside implanting a new set of thought processes around Art, its creation. The children were made aware of the possibilities of creating Art from things in the surroundings (nature, for example) and building and beautifying that surrounding (in this case, the school walls) further.