Art Project

This art project, in collaboration with HIMMAT involved working with six adolescents Shahjahan Sheikh, Tahira Pathan, Tasleem Kureishi, Rabiya Shiekh, Rehaana Sheikh and Farzana Sheikh who lost several members of their families in the carnage at Naroda Patiya, Ahmedabad, on the 28th of February 2002. It examines the role that art practices can play in a collective trauma such as that which gripped Gujarat that year, and addresses a range of issues from personal loss to displacement, and the possibility of mobilization and economic revival through the use of the visual language.

In terms of methodology, the focus is on process rather than a pre-determined outcome, and further the recording of the process through painting, writing, and the digital media, as an archive against forgetting, and the creation of a context – specific resource.

The project was supported as special grant from India Foundation for the Arts to Vasudha Thozur, an interdisciplinary artist. The project involved working with six adolescent girls who lost their family members in carnage of Naroda Patiya, Ahmedabad.

The project has created an archive of many paintings, posters  films, play cards, art pieces and were exhibitied at various places like Huttheesing Art Gallery - Ahmedabad, Vikalp - Mumbai, Inda Social Forum - New Delhi, World Social Forum - Nairobi, Sakshi Art Gallery - Mumbai, Vadhera Art Gallery - New Delhi, Jawala Nation University - New Delhi and Khoj - New Delhi.

NCERT has used images and paintings of this art project as cover page of their text book which is still in circulation.