Craft week: Students come to grips with trucking colours

Four-day workshop begins at Lok Virsa

ISLAMABAD: Gone are the days when truck art – the colourful paintings and sheet metal work adorning trucks and buses in the country – was looked on merely as a craft condemned to the motor oil soaked truck stands. Today, truck art is celebrated as a venerable heritage of Pakistan.

In this regards, the National Institute of Folk and Traditional Heritage- Lok Virsa – launched a new programme to teach children truck art.

Part of its series of “Craft is Knowledge”, the first programme on “Truck Art: Engagement with Artisans” was launched at the Museum Hall of Lok Virsa on Monday.

The opening ceremony of the programme included a number of live, colourful musical performances and a variety show by students from various government schools.

Sardar Ahmad Sukhera, the secretary of the Ministry of Information, said he was delighted to see “so much harmony here”.

“Respecting one another’s culture is very important for creating tolerance and diversity. You showed the power of diversity through your performances. Culture brings people together and ultimately makes a country stronger and peaceful.”



He visited a number of stalls at the event and met with artisans and students who were learning truck art.

Later while speaking to the media, Lok Virsa Executive Director Dr Fouzia Saeed said that they have launched the initiative mainly for young children.

“Our heritage museum highlights one craft every month with artisans and experts available for children to engage and learn from them. These craft-persons not only display their crafts and make them in front of the people, but also teach and have materials for them to experiment with the medium.  This, we hope, will give them hands-on opportunity to become familiar with the folk crafts,” she said.

“We want the maximum number of children to learn about traditional arts, which is important for safeguarding folk cultures and their history,” she added.

As many as 40 students from six years of age all the way through to 14-years-of-age studying in various schools and colleges working under the administrative control of Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) are participating in the four-day truck art training – much like the young apprentices who start training under master painters at truck stands.  

Published in The Express Tribune, September 19^th, 2017.