WATCH: A heartwarming follow-up to our Lucknow workshop

In February this year, we conducted a Gond workshop for the children of KK Academy in Lucknow. It was a great session and the energy of the teachers and their students was absolutely infectious. We were thrilled to hear a few weeks later that the children were so inspired by the philosophy of Gond paintings that they created a collage of art works to encourage nature conservation. This is exactly the kind of impact we hope to have when we conduct our outreach programmes—it’s not about teaching art, but imbuing a sense of pride in our country’s artistic heritage. But the students at KK Academy took this idea beyond anything we could have ever imagined. Through the summer, they played with the art form and slowly, with help from dedicated, resourceful teachers, developed stories of their own. They were then given a chance to act out these stories on the “biggest stage available in Lucknow”. As the founder of KK Academy puts it, the seed that Sarmaya hoped to plant grew into a great big tree. Best of all, the students documented the whole summer adventure in the form of the video above. We are proud and excited to have played a small role in this immersive art experience!