LESSONS IN ARTS
Museum starts workshops to educate kids in heritage
Mumbai: The Bhau Daji Lad Museum, in association with the Indian National Trust for Arts and Culture (INTACH), has devised a special programme to familiarise students with its collection of artefacts. Every Saturday, children aged between eight and 14 years are invited to participate in the workshops conducted by professional artisans.
At Saturdays inaugural session, two batches of students from civic and private schools were introduced to pottery by a local craftsman. The children moulded little pots on the wheel, painted them and watched over them as they were fired in the kiln. As a reward for their hard work, they were allowed to carry the pots home as souvenirs.
They may forget a chapter they read in school, but they will cherish this handson lesson in Indian pottery, said Tasneem Mehta, honorary director of the museum and head of the Mumbai chapter of INTACH. They also learnt that the museum has a proud collection of pottery that derives from the paintings in the Ajanta caves as well as Jaipur and Azamgarh.
Future workshops will teach the children about carving silver, and amalgamate the art of miniature paintings with music. Given that the museum has hundreds of sculptures on the communities that made Mumbai the trading hub it is, students will be invited to dress in costumes typical of each group and stage a skit. The activities are being supervised by education consultant Purnima Sampat.
Civic schools and voluntary organisations will not be charged for the workshops, while other schools will pay Rs 100 per student.
On my visits to European museums, I have seen small batches of students sitting before paintings with worksheets and pencils in hand, and a teacher to guide them through the module. In India though, school trips to any museum are often reduced to a mere march-past by the collections, says Mehta. We are trying to replicate that module by conducting workshops in Marathi and also encouraging children to be creative.