Participatory Media Project: Images Of Change (2023 - 2025)
Updated: Sep 28
Two years ago in 2023 January, I received a grant for the Participatory Media Project from Conscious Community Initiative, (Alef Trust), UK.
The concept for this project arrived from the grounds of my filmmaking practice, my forays into formal and informal education practice within art, design and developmental spaces, and my masters in Consciousness, Spirituality and Transpersonal psychology from Alef Trust and Liverpool John Moore's University, U.K.
It was a research project and an experiment. The research revolved around observing holistic change in the participants, within a group setting, through the experience of creating media in the context of ecology and waste management. The project envisioned co- creating frameworks that invite an intimate connection with the environment, new ways of seeing and creative engagement with technology to tell personal stories.
The project commenced its 1st phase from May 2023 to May 2024 in Bir Himachal, Pradesh, with Deer Park Institute, as my collaborative partner. Deer Park Institute has been engaged in creating awareness with environmental issues in the Trans Himalayan region for over two decades. They proved to be a wonderful partner to work with. Trilok Singh was assigned by Deer Park to be my co-facilitator and was a great support.
A mixed group of boys and girls, age: 12 to 16yrs, students from local government school of Bir and Matru, Higher Secondary School were selected to participate in the project. The project worked in cycles of two and a half months with breaks for rains and winter. We met twice weekly on alternate days after school and all days on a holiday
Participatory Media Project’s objective was…to create awareness in the area of ecology and issues around waste management and environmental concerns by using participatory approach towards communication. An emphasis on critical, contemplative, experiential and reflective skills while building upon an artistic engagement to tell stories, using digital technology and mobile phones to produce media, became the pivot to invite a shift and expansiveness in consciousness. The process unfolded at diverse levels and engaged different dimensions of experience.
The 2nd cycle saw the participant students creating two songs around climate change and waste management.
The group also spent a day with an organization- Dharmalaya, engaging in hands-on contextual learning about organic farming, mud brick building and permaculture. This inspired the participant group to create two short films around permaculture and natural living.
It was exhilarating for me to watch the ownership of learning and creative production transfer completely to the group. It bore witness that transformation was underway.
Documentation videos on the songs produced by the student participants :
The third cycle was devoted to dissemination of the participant films and their views on environmental issues. This unfolded in few schools around the local community, including their own schools and also at Deer Park Institute… to a hall filled with 100 or so adult viewers. The project had achieved its aim successfully.
Presentation of Cycle 3 (video) :
The Learning Trampoline
This is a metaphor, that informs my teaching endeavours. An intentional framework that I strive to keep, and also a philosophy that sustains my pedagogical explorations. I realized early on, through my experience as a facilitator in formal and informal spaces, that it’s not possible to teach Art. What is possible… is to facilitate a learning environment that could nurture and encourage artistic expression through art practice and habits. Speaking metaphorically again… one hopes to be able to open that door or a window… to invite them to walk out… jump….and look beyond so to speak… to explore other ways of seeing, listening and thinking. This is the Learning Trampoline that I sought to offer the participants in the project
Below is a link to my interview about the project published on Alef Field.
Phase 2 : Collaborations
The project moved into its second phase to the south of India and unfolded through shorter stints of four months at Wayanad, Kerala, and three months in the outskirts of Bangalore. Wayanad saw the project collaborating with Hume Centre for Ecology and Wildlife and at Bangalore with SIEDS. I followed a similar trajectory as in Phase 1. The process moved through participant recruitment, building groups as a circle, facilitating the sessions through diverse leaning pathways, along with the participatory approach and reflective and meditative practices as core aspects of the project. Changes were enacted to accommodate shorter time span and the cycles.
Engaging youth through storytelling and tech to deepen ecological awareness is a creative way to inspire meaningful environmental action. https://heartopiagame.net