Students wow intellectuals with colourful display of art

Round-table discussion sheds light on role of arts in girls' education

Students from different government schools on Saturday put up a colourful display of creativity at Khatoon-e-Pakistan Government School for an art exhibition.

On show was a set of student artworks as well as a round-table discussion titled, "The Role of the Arts in Girls' Education."

Creative thinkers from a variety of fields held a detailed discussion on how to capitalise on the power of art to transform lives.

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The exhibition featured a diverse set of student artworks from children enrolled in classes one to nine, ranging from portraits, pointillism, marker art such as zentangle and optical illusion, and experimental assignments in merging two animals into one.

A series of split portraits made by students of class seven was one of the highlights of the event.



Another artwork that caught the attention of the audience was an installation titled "Fly Free" – a lopsided arrangement of art room stools each painted with a beautiful story of its own.

This was one of the creations of the host school's art club, which gives students the freedom to paint what they want.

PHOTO: EXPRESS

The art programme was introduced to the schools by Zindagi Trust, which employs a subject lead to design a customised art curriculum as well as to train government teachers to teach art.

Hameeda Batool, the curator of the show and art teacher at Khatoon-e-Pakistan School, said "I'm surprised to see so many parents wanting to meet the art teacher as they could see their child showing keen interest in the subject."

"So many parents wanted to ask what they can do to support their child's interest in art and help them possibly pursue it as a career," she said.



The Creatives' Roundtable featured Tazeen Husain, head of communication design at Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, advertising guru Faraz Maqsood Hamidi, make-up artist Natasha Khalid of Natasha Salon, and Anam Shakil Khan, a visual artist and curriculum designer who established host school's art programme and developed an art curriculum to be used by all government schools, moderated by architect and interior designer Zain Mustafa.

The round-table began with a presentation by Anam Shakil Khan on the remarkable journey of the school's art program from an empty room to where it stands today.

PHOTO: EXPRESS

The thinkers exchanged ideas on the value of an art education, making art and art education more accessible, gender biases about and within the arts and, most importantly, the purpose of an art education. The consensus, as make-up artist Natasha Khalid put it, was that "art teaches you from a very early age that nothing fits in a box."

A recurring theme in the discussion as well as from some of the art educators visiting the show later was that art teaches children how to think in a new way and helps them learn how to solve problems creatively, which is the need of the world today.

"A multimillion dollar oil company would always come to artists/advertisers to sell their business – logic will not sell it," Faraz Maqsood Hamidi remarked.

"Whenever I try to get a group of my students together to go paint a mural or start a community art project, it's always the girls that come forward. They have this passion to express themselves," Summaiya Jillani said on the question of gender in art.

The roundtable ended on a heartwarming note as one of the presensting student artists' father addressed the parents in the audience and urged them to let their daughters "fly" and pursue whatever it is that interests them.