Leela Mukherjee Artist-Educator Grant 2024: Announcing grantee

Working out of the The Happy Children’s Library, a community library space for children of Seem, Dhon, Byasi, Siltona and Jogyari villages, he will engage the children at the library in a year-long comics and art program. The grant will support his ongoing project at the library, and allow for more focus on visual thinking and storytelling, taking inspiration and shape from the ecosystem and societies of this region. Using sequential art or narratives as a process for sense making, they will use approaches such as speculative storytelling or world building to look at the world, their relationships and their societies more closely. While introducing the children to new formats of comics, the project will also seek to read the existing non-comic material in the library more closely using methods of interpretation from comics. These interactions and inquiries will further work as extensions of thought processes that inform his own writing.  

The jury, consisting of Dr. Kristine Michael and Dr. Sarada Natarajan, was impressed with how nuanced his proposal was and the importance of his ongoing work at the library. They felt that his intention to use the book as the anchor to engage in a wide range of artistic and learning activities allowed for a strong grounding in the resources that are available to them. The jury also felt strongly about supporting a project that was consciously located itself in the Himalayan region, with a clear intention of engaging with its geography, ecology of the region and its relationship with people, its myths and stories, and the affects of human impact.

Samarth is an artist, graphic narrativist and arts-educator based in Ranikhet, Uttarakhand. He works with the pen name ‘roeqin’. His practice is primarily centred around sequential art and is situated within the contexts he inhabits. Visual narratives offer him a container for the observed and documented to marinate in the fictional and speculative - The people, settings, and ecologies that surround him find their way into his work, constituting the fabric through which his stories are woven. This active sense-making of the ecosystems around him is also what inspires his work as an art educator, collaborating with children to perceive the society, ecology and geography around them and interpret their experiences of it using comics. Samarth graduated from the IDC School of Design, IIT Bombay.  His first graphic novel, ‘Suit’, was published by Yodapress in 2022.

ABOUT THE GRANT

The Leela Mukherjee Artist-Educator Grant has been instituted to celebrate the legacy of Mrs. Leela Mukherjee, a pioneering modernist and educator, and one of the first women sculptors of modern India. After graduating from Santiniketan she learnt woodcarving from a master sculptor in Nepal and practiced as a sculptor from 1954until almost the 1980s.

She was equally committed to her role as an art teacher. She taught at Welham Boys’ School, Dehradun, for over two decades where she introduced art to generations of young learners. She carried her artistic philosophy into the classroom, introducing her young students to a wide range of mediums and material, and encouraging them to make art by observing the world around them. She recognized the role of art education as being multifold - as a way for individuals to make artistic selection in everyday life, to developing citizens who share responsibilitiesand satisfaction, to generate sensitivity, to discover and nurture artists ofthe future, and guide in individual growth by providing opportunities forself-expression. Most importantly she believed that an art teacher should firstbe a creative artist themself.

The Leela Mukherjee Artist-Educator Grant has been instituted by Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation with the support of Welham Old Boys’ Society.

It is an annual grant that seeks to support artists-educators in India who are engaged in developing and running an art education project with school-aged children (5- 18 years of age), either within or outside the classroom. The grant encourages artist-educators whose project integrates local knowledge, and lived environments and experiences into their learning and teaching methods.

The grant amount is Rs. 1 lakh and will support a project that is completed within 12 months. 

Who is an artist-educator?

An artist-educator is a practitioner who is creatively and critically engaged with art, ideas, and cultural knowledge, and also committed to learning, teaching and pedagogy as part of their practice. If your work as an artist informs your teaching, and vice versa, then this grant can support your project.  

Guidelines for the Proposal

• The proposal can be for an ongoing or upcoming project located anywhere within India.

• The proposal should clearly indicate the nature of the student group (do they belong to the same class/school or local community or club etc.) who will be engaged in this project, and your reason for working with this group. 

• The proposal should explain your motive in undertaking this project and how you see your practice and work as an educator intersecting in this project.

• It should identify the innovative strategies and the artistic modes and methods that you propose to explore.

• The proposal should outline the expected outcome(s) of the project at the end of 12 months.

• Should include a tentative budget that explains how the funds will be used, and a brief timeline of the project.

General Terms and Conditions