Young Creators Safe Space
The Young Creators Safe Space (YCSS) program is part of the Yuva in Culture project organized by the Indian Music Experience Museum, in partnership with the British Council. It aspires to create a safe and nurturing environment for upcoming artists to bounce ideas off each other, collaborate, find their own voice and amplify their own work.
YCSS Facilitators
YCSS Team
YCSS Mid Program Evaluation
On Sunday 3 April IME’s Young Creators Safe Safe (YCSS) program participants got together for a sharing session in connection with the culmination of phase one of the program to share their journey and progress on community engagement projects they had been working on during the past few months. Joined by Manasi Prasad, Director, YCSS program facilitators (Bruce Lee Mani, Madhu Natraj, KM Chaitanya, Nisha Abdulla, Indira Chandrasekhar and Pallavi Chander), Tejshvi Jain and Lakshmi R from IME, the program included presentations, games and a reflection session. During the session, participants presented their individual learnings from the interaction sessions they had with the YCSS facilitators. They also presented their group proposals on community engagement through the arts. IME looks forward to supporting the YCSS team in realizing their projects and building a community of socially conscious young artists.
YCSS Final Showcase Event
During the program, the YCSS participants presented to the audience about the art-driven community projects they worked on over the past two months with guidance from their mentors. While one of the projects was themed around gender disparity and stereotypes, the other was a retrospective of the pandemic and related challenges recorded through the lens of blue-collar workers.
Team 1 – The Pandemic Times
Team 1 comprised four young artists across the disciplines of Visual Art, Classical Dance and Classic Music. They brought out a news zine titled the Pandemic Times on life and times in the pandemic through the lens of blue collar workers. The process involved conducting interviews with the everyday people that conduct invisible labour and support our lives, research into the effects of the pandemic on marginalised communities including women. Further, the newszine used different devices of conveying information in a traditional newspaper as mediums to present different perspectives on the pandemic.
Team 2 – Gender Disparity
Two of the artists, Ananya and Aanchal from the team co-wrote, composed and recorded a song titled Unemcumbered based on the responses received through the circulated google form where participants were free to talk about their experiences with regard to gender. Ananya say, “It was educational and exhilarating and we hope that we have been able to do justice to all the wonderful responses participants were kind enough to give us. We also hope that you have as much fun and joy listening to it when it is released as we did creating it!”
Unencumbered
The other artists, Apeksha and Saibrindha visited an orphanage to create awareness and sensitise children on issues pertaining to gender disparity and stereotypes. Conducted on June 30th 2022, the 90-minute workshop was attended by 25 children of the age group 11- 17 years of age. Children were shown 3 advertisements entrenched in gender stereotypes — its subliminal messaging, its role in social conditioning, building and propagating stereotypes. The facilitators wrapped up the session with a mini talent show that encouraged children to showcase their talent. There was dance, music, and beatboxing!
