This past weekend, I had the opportunity to bring 17 senior art students to Delhi. Not just seniors, the seniors from the AP Studio Art class. These are the most dedicated art students and most of them are looking into going into the art field when they graduate. They are the students I know best, having worked with some of them since 2008. While the trip was four days, we only had two days to visit galleries and sites. The months of October and November have been exhaustingly packed, so it was difficult to get my energy up before the trip. However, I found the trip inspiring and I feel absolutely privileged to have had the opportunity to spend a weekend with these students.
Day 1:
-National Gallery of Modern Art: This museum is phenomenal and highly recommended for anyone passing through Delhi. The students loved it equally as much as I do and even asked to spend extra time. (It's not very often that group of high school students wants to spend more than 2 hours in a museum!). It was delightful to see them wide-eyed among the huge abstract paintings. One pair of students spent the whole 2 hours on one of the 6 floors because they couldn't get enough of the enormous oil paintings!
Most of the group in front of the National Gallery. They come from India, Nepal, Afghanistan, Tanzania, Korea, Bangladesh, and the US.
Do you get it? (A P A R T)
Getting some last photos of the sculpture garden
-Hauz Khas Village and Ruins: Next, we headed to South Delhi to visit the village and ruins of Hauz Khas. Unfortunately, our driver (who turned out to know very little about Delhi, having come from Himachal) had no idea where it was and we ended up driving around in circles for an hour and a half. We did manage to walk briefly through part of the ruins and stop at one art gallery in the village, but more time would have been appreciated!
We spent a lot of time on this bus.
Maybe this had something to do with it.
Students at Hauz Khas ruins
Posing.
Lokayata Artist's Gallery
-Reflections Art Gallery: A definite highlight for the students was visiting a gallery run by a Woodstock graduate. Unlike most of the art galleries in Delhi, Reflections focuses on art and activism. Stefan, the Woodstock alum, explained the mission of Reflections and shared about a recent artists' workshop that created artwork about tuberculosis. We also heard from two artists who are involved with Reflections. The students were definitely inspired and are eager to make their own artwork more meaningful.
Stefan giving the students an overview on the mission of Reflections.
Intrigued.
The artwork on Tuberculosis.
-Dilli Haat: After Reflections, we headed to the well-known tourist destination Dilli Haat. Essentially, it is a large arts, crafts, and food market that sells products from all over India. The artists rotate, so each time there are new stalls to visit. We had dinner and did some shopping.
-Wedding Crashing: I believe we now hold the record for the largest wedding crash ever attempted by Woodstock! Well, a few amendments...It was technically a wedding pooja; we were kind of, sort of, backwardly invited; and it was more than attempted - it was successful! A student's parents work in the wedding planning industry (there is no better place than India for wedding planning!) and they were working on a large event for a very, very, very wealthy family. Over the course of a week, the family was having three (at least) wedding events and the student's parents were planning each site. Yes, each site. Below are images of the first one, which is the wedding pooja. A pooja is a religious event, though I'm not sure what the aim of this pooja was specifically. The second site was the mehendi site. Mehendi is another word for henna. Indian weddings have an event to adorn the bride in henna. We also went to this site, which was still under construction. Don't worry, we did see the 30 foot tall Buddha being carved out of styrofoam and the fake trees that were made out of plastic (and painted gold). We were too tired to see the actual wedding site.
The entrance to the pooja.
The main hall of the pooja.
A panwallah (sweet pan is an after dinner palette cleanser, digestion helper, and breath mint. They can taste really bad.
The best part was the food! We might have hovered in front of all the deliciousness much longer than is polite.
Day 2:
Qtub Minar: This historic site in South Delhi proved to be the perfect excursion for sketching and taking in beautiful architecture.
Looking for sites to capture on film and paper.
A nice (and, apparently, forbidden) place to sketch!
The pillar.
Happy site see-er!
Sketching the pillars
Sketchers with the Qtub Minar pillar looming in the background
In the sketching zone
Bollywood moves!
-Delhi Art Gallery, Vasant Kunj: Our second small gallery visit was to a privately owned gallery in a very upscale mall. One of the art advisors gave us a tour of the gallery, giving us a brief overview of modern Indian art. It was great to get some art history as well as a sense of what an upscale gallery does. It was a nice contrast to the grassroots mentality of Reflections.
Our host explaining some of the artworks.
The gallery was tiny and had sliding walls!
-Sita Ram Stationers: Next we headed to an art supply shop. The students enjoyed finding some special art supplies and the shop owner appreciated us so much that he treated us to free coconuts!
"Hey, Ms. Onkka, do I look like a painter?"
Yum, coconuts!
The coconut vendors.
-India Habitat Center: Lastly, we went to the Habitat Center, which is a lot like a cultural center. We had a great dinner and then went to a short-film screening. The venue was packed and it was fun to feel like we were part of an event. We saw some great short films from India as well as internationally. We also popped into a few small gallery spaces.
A closer look at the pen drawings.
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