Artwork above by Raj.
This session began with us playing a game introduced by the surrealists called ‘The Exquisite Corpse’. A game in which everyone draws a head and neck on a piece of paper then folds over the section they’ve drawn it on to and passes it to their neighbour without them seeing it. Then everyone draws the shoulders and waist onto the section below the head and neck, folds it over and passes it along… and so on, and so on, until a full figure has been drawn and named. Only at the end is the piece of paper unfolded to see what or whom has been created… Nowadays you’re more likely to find children playing the game than adults, but it’s an activity I like to go back to when I want to introduce ideas around collage… It’s also a great way to warm a group up, and of course make that first (scary for some) mark on paper.
Anyway, taking part in the game and present this week were myself, Janpal, Jane, Minz, Kuldip and Raj. Whilst we were playing there were a few fears aired about doing it wrong, but once everyone was reassured that there was no ‘right’ way to play the game, these gave way to ‘having a go’… Right at the end of the session we actually reflected on the fact that such fears were in fact likely founded in early experiences of schooling (not always positive) which was a useful discussion.
The most interesting bit about playing this warm-up game came after it was over however. Folding paper seemed to remind people of previous times they’d made things from paper as a child. Kuldip showed us how to make a paper plane and Janpal made a water bomb - the moment he inflated it was a particularly impressive and performative moment!
Paper sculptures by Kuldip and Janpal
The next part of the workshop had us returning to some object work as per last week. This time new objects had been brought in by Kuldip and Janpal. We realised that birds are becoming a recurring theme for Kuldip…
Participants were then asked to select an object they were drawn to and discuss a memory it prompted in pairs… This time I asked them to really go into detail about their story.
Then we were to move onto COLOUR.
Rather than immediately being asked to draw or represent the memory on paper, people were asked to think about what colours might be associated with it and then paint / use soft pastels or crayons to show these on a piece of A3 paper in some way. Then if they wanted to they were invited to cut out some images that related to that memory from magazines - and arrange these together… There was also cloth for people to work with and tissue paper and glitters and other scraps of coloured paper. Nothing was off limits! And the image they made didn’t have to be representational.
Raj’s image (inspired by a toy swan) was a memory of playing with ducks with her grandchild - in a bath and on the local Southall Canal / in a local park - somewhere she wouldn’t go anymore because it had become overrun with pigeons and dirt. Kuldip’s memory was to do with the birds in his garden. Jane’s memory was to do with her grandma, as was mine. Janpals’ was a patchwork of associations and Minz’s was to do with the game bittu.
Minz’s memory inspired some talk about other games… and we wondered if perhaps there might be a future session we could do where we played some of the games we used to enjoy…
As before the objects proved rich prompts for conversation. I noticed that this session also had several moments of silence in it as people got on with making their images… I wondered if this was something to do with me asking people to think particularly deeply about one memory in particular… and about us looking backwards… On the train home Jane and I had a fleeting conversation about using objects as prompts for looking forwards… Imagining India now. Something to think about…
Sheila Ghelani
