Ourshaala (Item)

OurShaala

Design workshop for kids | 2024

Design Workshop

Stop Motion Animation

OurShaala, a joint initiative by Jaaga and BeFantastic, brings arts and design practice into schools, creating hands-on opportunities for children to learn and collaborate. As part of this program, I curated a week-long workshop for children aged 9–12 from Mathru Center for the Deaf and Differently-abled and Mallya Aditi International School.

Over the course of the week, the children worked in three groups. One group painted a wall artwork, another added a 3D layer to the mural using hand casts representing sign language alphabets, and a third group—guided by me—took on the role of documenting the entire process. The multimedia mural, was one of the first things visitors would see as they entered the campus so was designed to help visitors pick up simple sign language and begin interacting with the children.

The documentation team became storytellers of the workshop. They learnt to take photographs, record videos, conduct interviews, and edit their material into a coherent narrative. By the end of the week, they had produced a short film, a presentation, and a simple webpage. This webpage could be accessed through QR codes embedded in the mural, offering visitors sign language phrases to begin communicating with the children.

The workshop was designed to ensure accessibility and inclusion, enabling hearing-impaired and hearing children to collaborate on equal footing. The result was more than just a colorful mural, it was a shared experience of learning new skills, building friendships, and telling stories together, while also leaving behind tools for future visitors to connect with the school community.