ARTISTIC SQUARE
‘Making as Thinking’
Objectives:
- To promote students in art oriented learnings
- To produce creative works that demonstrate artistic innovations in concepts, and materials
- Encourage students to describe, analyze and interpret created artworks
- To create more positive and smooth ambience for the students.
- To develop student’s creativity and imagination through different of art activities.
- To develop increasing confidence in the use of visual and tactile elements and materials among student artisans.
- To foster an enjoyment and appreciation of the visual arts and a knowledge of artists, craftspeople and designers among students.
Context and Practice
MES Kallladi College always manage an exhibitory platform for students which runs parallel to the academic progress. ARTISTIC square is a vibrant and innovative platform for students to manifest their artistic skills. The initiative is thus invested in using the potential of a global art forms to energize art and craft skills and production among college students. With a focus on art history, intermediate, technology, critical theory, public art, architecture and art curation, ARTISTIC SQARE emerge from the expertise team of student artisans who are constantly doing research and examines in arts to develop their skills. It engage the students in process-intensive, practice-based learning. As part of this initiative, students have many art manifestation throughout the campus walls, Library, and Museum. The initiative will respond to local contexts and forms of knowledge that is accumulated into the fabric of different art forms, acknowledge and attempt to engage with the larger arena of artistic manifestations that exists around art world, and tackle challenges like limited resources, institutional norms and geography that greatly determine the functioning of these spaces. This exhibitory platform is spread over several spaces along the class rooms Road and trees and is growing to become a firm fixture on the schedule of many of the knowing campus visitors. It is the important platform for students to exhibit thus, attracting the art cognoscenti from all departments. students responding brilliantly to the curatorial discussions of ‘Making as Thinking’, saw many take a leap of faith with the productive experiments and the mentoring, pushing concept and form on the one hand and bringing their stories evocatively to the colors of art.
Hisbate is platform started by Department of History to encourage dialogues on academic and intellectual topics. And Artistic square is used to be the venue for it, Knowledge is power — is an often repeated quote — but knowledge created or pondered over only empowers when it is enabling; it has to move from conferences and what’s happening on the outside to make it into the curriculum. As we know, to put into practice, or more mundanely into a practical program, is something that needs to be done at our colleges and Artistic square and Hisbate is doing that in campus excellently. This art platform, after all, is a unique initiative where the curators have been artists from the inception; this can be the pedagogical cross over too.
Evidence of Success
The response from students to the ARTISTIC SQUARE initiative was highly positive and large numbers of students were taken part of art works in campus. Thus the platform is being used as a manifestation canvas for their artistic skills. For many students, art is a tool that fosters critical-thinking skills and mental health booster. Exploration, experimentation and installations made them very excited and energetic. Also students learned appropriate ways to interact with peers, with teachers, and with other people in more engaging and positive way.