The popular image of an artist is that of a loner, working cooped up inside a room, in blissful isolation from the rest of the world. The Government College of Fine Arts, Thiruvananthapuram, is now witnessing a reversal of that image, with the coming together of students practising disparate art forms and bringing to the table a confluence of ideas. All of that is aimed at a crowdfunding project to support the younger sister of a student here, who is facing a severe medical condition requiring expensive treatment.
The collective, involving faculty and students from all the departments such as painting, sculpture, and applied art, has chosen a Tamil name for itself—Sakavalvu (co-existence in Tamil). Over the past few weeks, they have created a whole bunch of products, drawing on their learnings at the college, and put them up for sale in the Sakavalvu Instagram page started for the purpose.
The products on display include terracotta office utilities, eco-printed pinafore and caftan, tote bags with printed woodcut artworks, cyanotype prints and bookmarks, bamboo pens, art prints, pendants and stickers, all of it created within the campus, with the material they use in their studies. Soon, they will be available in a physical stall within the college campus too.
