Taking art to villages across Tamil Nadu

After finishing his graduation from Government College of Fine Arts in 1997, Ezhilarasan has been working with Lalit Kala Akademi as an independent artist. He decided to take a break from his mundane activities and decided to travel to villages across Tamil Nadu. He didn’t want to do farming; instead, wanted to do something beneficial for the farmers’ kids. “I was very much disturbed — I felt something was missing in my life. I felt a strong urge to share my knowledge about art. In fact, art becomes better only through sharing. I started off my mission of teaching the students terracotta and drawing and have been doing it for two decades now,” he reminisces. 

For almost five years, he has been travelling to many districts and training children in everything he knew. But after a point, his work got recognised and he started receiving requests from government schools and other independent organisations. “Soon, I realised the need to take my initiative to the next level. That’s how I formed an independent organisation called Clay Finger7 (Kali mann Viralgal) (the number 7 signifies completion of some kind). We’ve got many freelance theatre artistes and performers in our team. Our motto is to entertain and teach children multiple activities and help them express themselves,” he shares. 

His travelling group of around 25 performers teaches theatre, painting, paper crafts, clay modelling and folk arts to the students in government schools. Youngsters from each village also help the team in setting up the classes. “There will be a bunch of enthusiastic youngsters in all the regions we perform. When they get to know that we are doing a session in a local school, they contact and help us out,” the artist says. 

What Ezhilarasan has noticed is that most government schools in the state don’t have art and craft classes as part of their extracurricular activities. “It is really saddening. Like how they give importance to academics, the TN government should give importance to various art forms as well. I really hope they include an art session in the curriculum.” 

According to Ezhilarasan, teachers, parents and even the villagers are equally interested in the workshops and are supportive of them. But, the real problem is to get children’s attention — “The students in the villages lack exposure and are mostly shy and quiet. They don’t even ask doubts regarding the subjects they study. And the best way to overcome the stage fright is through theatre. For this, we have collaborated with Moonram Arangu, a theatre group started by KS Karuna Prasad,” he says, adding, “Another disadvantage is that they know only about two courses — engineering or medicine. I am not saying those courses are less significant, but the students should know about alternative courses like film, theatre, art, photography and so on. In fact, they are deprived of information,” says Ezhilarasan. 

Talking about the challenges, Ezhilarasan says with a smile, “Well, they are many. But the main challenge is to overcome the children’s nervousness and allays fears. We have a good number of talented artistes on board, but another problem we face is collecting the required number of art supplies, stationery and props for theatre. We cover all the expenses — right from travelling to buying the stationery from Parry’s Corner. I am glad that my team members are able to pitch in whatever they can. But we need more support from the public.” 

The team also teaches the students folk dances like Oyilattam, Mayilattam, Poikkaal Kuthirai Aattam, Kolattam and Kummi. “We plan our workshops and demonstrations well in advance. Once we finalise the school, we get in touch with the local folk artistes to come on board.” 

They also hold sessions at schools for children who are visually or speech or hearing impaired. “We have a different set of activities for the children,” he sums up.