Sahil Balmiki’s poem talks about how it isn’t easy to stand up for oneself, especially if you have to fight your own shadows. It goes on to say that other people feel he’s nothing, but he can’t believe them, and so is on a journey to find himself.
Balmiki, 18, is a student of Ashoka University on a full scholarship. He moved with his family from Kolkata to Delhi for his education and for better prospects. His parents, both unwell, are unable to work, and his brother, who works in a shop in Chandni Chowk, is the sole earning member. “I had a lot of problems. Academically, I didn’t do well. I come from a different background and culture [compared to the others in the university], and I didn’t participate in class,” he says.
Balmiki and eight other students from diverse income groups, genders, and nationality in Ashoka, were a part of a residential project of self-exploration and inner work across five days, led by Arvinder Singh, a psychotherapist. The workshop was initiated by Red Balloon that does creatively-led immersive leadership programmes with students.
As a culmination to the workshop, the students designed an installation titled Moving Out to Go Within that was pieced together by Sumant Jayakrishnan, a designer who works with scenography and installations, and who is a mentor in Red Balloon.
Amit Gupta of STIR (left), Samar Singh Jodha of Red Balloon, artist Sumant Jayakrishnan and psychotherapist Arvinder Singh
The work, designed as a circular structure, about 28 feet in diameter and 12 feet tall, has an outer shell of acrylic, wood and glass, held together by metal. Printed on the outer panels are writings by students that they did towards the end of the workshop. A viewer can enter the structure, the centre of which is a sort of totem pole topped with a brass eagle and rainbow-hued strings flowing out from it.
Around the poleare nine inner panels, each of which moves on its individual axis. The panels are framed outlines that the students drew of one other. The students then took their own bodymaps and did self-portraits, filling them with little bits and baubles, a representation of how they saw their inner worlds and their aspirational selves. Balmiki’s was the most colourful. Another student, grappling with body image issues, depicted herself with a crop top to show her aspiration of wearing one, and the sense of freedom she’d have from doing so.
“We weren’t looking for skills or creativity,” says Samar Singh Jodha, the founder of Red Balloon. The hope was to help the young adults look past drawing and painting, and get into a “space where they could present their own voices.”
Parts of the journaling process
The process of how the piece of interactive art came about is set out in an album beside the installation. When the students saw the completed work that they’d conceptualised, they were delighted. “I felt it [the installation] was mine. It had been a beautiful journey — a life-changing one,” says Balmiki.
The journey itself came about as a chain of communication, with Jodha reaching out to Jayakrishnan, who in turn spoke to Singh. She had been his therapist when he’d suffered depression and anxiety, and he’d benefited from sessions with her. “A lot of what you experience at my age (he recently turned 50) goes back to when you were young,” he says, referring to events in childhood that can have an impact later in life.
The workshop that Singh conceptualised revolved around mental health, with each day dedicated to a few activities. “There were exercises on fear for instance — what it is, how to deal with it and ways of navigating through it. There was mask-making, journaling, painting messages on T-shirts, and mirror-imaging which taught empathy,” says Singh.
All of these brought out the students’ pain, thoughts, and aspirations, while empowering them with choices.
“Restorying your story to restore your empowered self,” is the way she sees it. One reflective exercise involved the students asking themselves: ‘How are you?’ Balmiki says he broke down at this and cried for a while.
Jayakrishnan, who was involved in some parts of the process, had conversations through sessions with the students to understand their ideas for the installation. He helped weave the ideas together, with some being putting to a vote. “The core idea came from them,” he says, recalling that they went through several before they settled on this, as they held each other in a tightly knit circle. “Ideas ranged from the petals of a flower to fire and an eagle, which made it to the final design, and actually holds it all together,” he says, adding that a number of the students’ stories resonated with him.
The installation that will be taken to Ashoka University in April, is a symbol of acknowledging mental health and its significance in building leaders who will show the way through self-awareness and empathy. There’ll be a week long mental health awareness week in the university, where these nine students will lead the discussion. Balmiki says he is now able to participate in class without feeling the pressure of being ‘different’.
At Stir gallery, DLF Chhattarpur Farms; on view until April 15th
