Residency 1: Unmesh Inamdar Art Academy, India ( 39 hours completed )
Residency 2: Children’s Residential Treatment Center (teens) ( 1 hour )
Shadowing: Shakun Maheshwari teaching artist, COMPAS
This week, my friend Anavi and I facilitated the community walks as I talked about in the Week 6 journal entry. It was an amazing experience. The walk happened on three days at different times. We walked through the MCAD for 15 minutes with a 1-minute of pause. We walked silently which allowed us to focus on other sensory experiences. It made aware of the surroundings and the own body.
We wanted to address segregation happens in the MCAD community in terms of spacial division. Most of the time comic majors do not go to the 3D shop because there is no need for them to be there. And this happens to most of the people at MCAD that they have been to some parts of MCAD for years because there was no reason to go there. The walk was mainly designed to bring people together despite their majors, titles, and backgrounds. It allowed the participant to experience MCAD as space.
The participant found the walk meditative. Some participants raised questions about their presence in the space. Not being able to interact with people because of the required silence and walking without purpose made them think about the body and spatial interaction.
As a facilitator, I found it vulnerable and uncountable mainly when we were walking in the crowd. I felt responsible for the group. It was an eye-opening experience for me. I do think everyone should take a without purpose walk in a day. The walk definitely calmed me down and refreshed me.
I excited to start my residency at the Children’s Residential Treatment Center next week.