Jahanara

Jahanara is an Assistant Teacher at the Government Higher Primary School, Mukta Gudadur, Koppala district. She comes from the pool of trained facilitators who underwent the Kali Kalisu orientation workshop that was conducted in Pavagada last year. Having been exposed to various forms of literary arts, she now wants to use her skills to aid the learning process of her students. 

 

This project titled Nannura Kaudi (Quilt from My Place) – attempts to engage students, families, and neighbourhood communities from Gudadur, Gumagera, Ganganala and Sasvihala villages to explore the practice of quilt making as an expression of collective labour and aesthetics. Jahanara will encourage students in gathering knowledge and information about the history, designs, purposes and memories of quilt making. With the help of workshops held by external resources she will help students understand how to do research and then learn the skills of making these quilts. This will enable students to understand how to work collectively and they will learn new artistic skills and techniques, and express feelings and ideas through images and words. In doing so, the project seeks to develop creativity and imagination among the students. 

This project also plans to help students create quilts made of creative writings on paper squares. This will facilitate the children to see the classroom as one unified community. Students will learn about each other’s unique qualities, share their own backgrounds and stories of their families, and learn how each square, very different from each other, can be joined together to represent inclusion and unity. When the paper quilt is hung in a place of prominence, it will provide a visual reminder of that unity. 

 

Given her strong community network, her project also focuses on using local folk art resources to train children in movement and song based art forms. She has identified Kolata, a rhythmic and rigorous folk form that would be used to train children to exercise their bodies and experience the flow of music. Practicing it on a regular basis, she hopes, will bring a sense of discipline among children and an understanding of the rhythmic beats of the form. 

A public performance, exhibition and a publication of creative writings of students will be the outcome of the project. The deliverables from this project to IFA will be a copy of the publication, and photographs and video documentation of the project.