Nature Connect – Through Art
“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” – Albert Einstein
🌳13-April-2025: With an intent to connect with nature through art as a part of Paper Ball Educational Innovation’s Nature Connect programme, we welcomed art enthusiasts in the midst of nature to create slow art🎨
About 21 participants from 6 years to 65 years joined us to be in midst of nature, to observe, to slow down, to connect, to draw and to share. The participants were welcomed with songs and sounds of different birds, peacocks, some monkeys, parrots, crows, Indian black ibis, and more. The river, although not flowing, showed some species of birds and a crocodile too.
Our guest artist, Sanjana Shelat, led today’s event. Sanjana is a painter, printmaker, photographer, visual story teller and an art educator who has been practicing art since 1992. She has conducted art workshops at various levels – schools, colleges and for professionals, and participated in several group shows showcasing paintings and photographs.
Sanjana briefed the participants about what they could observe and draw by providing a few nature inspired themes.
The artists, young and very young, then got to work creating nature-inspired art using paper, crayons, sketch-pens and pencil colours. In the meanwhile, our team of friends and volunteers, began to create a small land-art using the natural (and some waste) material found nearby.
As we wrapped up in an hour with a round of photographs, we also took the opportunity to let our participants know more about our work around environmental sustainability and share about a few of our programmes.
One of our participants, Krupa, shared that the space made her “feel very calm and it is not every day that I experience this calmness and peace.”
May more people connect with nature with awareness, and adopt slowness in their lives to understand the deep interconnections that we have with each part of nature.🌏
One of the challenges we observed during this event was that while 32 participants registered for the event, about 11 did not show up at all and did not even send out any message or update. This would have helped to give their spot to others who wanted to join. Each event, howsoever small, takes a lot of time and resources to be implemented, and it is disappointing when people do not turn up in spite of pre-registration, email confirmation and whatsapp messages.
Even as we contemplate this, we thank all the participants who could join and all our volunteer and artist friend who offered their time and energy towards this event.
