A WALK ON PEAT ROAD
Project
In Mhow, India the second Picha Poa photography workshop took place in January 2020. With the help of Udita Bhargava, a film director from Indore, and Dev Kumar Vasudevan the class was organised at the Gyanodaya School Mhow.
Mhow is an army town in the state of Madhya Pradesh, in the heart of India. Madhya Pradesh is one of the poorest states in India and like in Kenya art classes are not included in the school lessons. If parents want their children to do something creative they have to pay for extra classes. Most of the underprivileged families in Madhya Pradesh can’t afford this. So Picha Poa wanted to offer the photography workshop there with the hope that we can try to make a small difference.
Equipped with 3 packages of cameras (Canon EOS 6D MK II) and lenses (Canon EF 16-35mm, EF 24-105mm, EF 70-200mm), again sponsored by Canon Germany the journey to India has started on January 4th. After selecting a group of 9 students from Gyanodaya the first workshop lesson was held on January 7th. From Monday to Saturday between 12:15am to 2:15pm, sometimes even 2:30pm or even longer, the 9 students learned the basics of photography. Picha Poa was very happy to support especially the 6 girls in the group. But of course also the 3 boys! All the students were enthusiastic in learning and very smart. They quickly understood the knowledge and could transfer it into their photography. Like in Kibera a portrait shoot was part of the workshop but also several street photography shoots. A highlight for the kids was the selfie shoot because Indians love taking selfies! The students invited us during the shoots into their homes and gave us a close insight into their families and life in the slum.
After 16 days of photography class we were proud to share the results with the other students and teachers of Gyanodaya school. We organised a final exhibition and exhibited around 60 pictures which were taken during the 3 weeks of workshop.
At this point I want to say thank you to the people who supported Picha Poa:
Canon Germany, Gyanodaya School Mhow, San Disk, New Wave Kreativmanufaktur, Pfalzpunk, Family Mewara in Mhow India, all donators offline and online on gofundme.com, erstererster Galerie Berlin, BAGAGE Film, my family and friends
Students and Supporters
The students of the second Picha Poa class 2020: Vicky, Ranu, Divya, Kundan, Sonam, Pratibha, Manish, Prema, Rakhi
GYANODAYA School is situated in Mhow, a small town in Indore District of Madhya Pradesh state in Central India. Gyanodaya was founded on July 10, 2000 in a slum area for slum kids. Since that time the school takes care of 97 children at the age of 3 to 16 years, from Kindergarten to class 8. The registered Non-Governmental Organisation provides the students with free education but also with clothes, books and food. Public donations support the work of the school. The students are very bright and enthusiastic but don’t speak English, only Hindi. Dev Kumar Vasudevan, the secretary of the Executive Committee and a volunteer, has supported me during the workshop and translated from English to Hindi and vice versa.
Dev Kumar Vasudevan is an educationist and writer based in Mhow. He has also written for newspapers and has worked as a software professional. He is one of the volunteers who run Gyanodaya School. His interests include reading, cinema, blogging, photography, nature and birding. His blog on Mhow can be seen here:
Juliane Wendt, born in Eberswalde, went 2006 to Wismar to absolve her studies in communication design and media. After graduation and some longterm stays abroad she is now based in Berlin and working in the art department for different Film, TV and commercial projects.
Juliane joined the workshop classes in Mhow and supported the kids during the exercises. Her big challenge was to collect ideas for the exhibition in Berlin - how we can transport a bit of India to Germany. She did a wonderful job creating an arrangement in the erstererster gallery to present the photographs of the students in a perfect surrounding.
Udita Bhargava, born in Indore, India. There she has worked for big film productions like „Slumdog Millionaire“ before she came to Germany to study direction at the „Filmuniversität Babelsberg Konrad Wolf“. Her final movie „Dust“ premiered at Berlinale 2019 at „Perspektive Deutsches Kino“. She is currently working on her next project which is also based in India. For the shooting of „Dust“ I came for the first time in my life to Indore and I was really happy to go back for the second Picha Poa Workshop. Udita and Dev were responsible for the workshop organisation in India.
https://www.berlinale-talents.de/bt/talent/udita-bhargava4/profile
C.V. Balasubramanian
Sridevi Vasudevan is based in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh and is from Mhow.
She has done her graduation in Commerce and Masters In Business Administration in Human Resource Management.
She has a keen interest in Bird Watching, Sketching and Photography.
Exhibition
The A Walk on Peat Road exhibition should have been the wonderful ending of an exciting journey. But due to the worldwide Corona pandemic we had to close the exhibition right before it could have been opened for the first time. It was a real big pity that we couldn’t give our supporters and interested people the chance to take a walk on the Peat Road and through the Peat Road slum where Gyanodaya school is situated.
But we want to use our online platform to offer a digital walk through the exhibition and to present the results of the second Picha Poa class in Mhow, India.
A Walk on Peat Road Exhibition Picha Poa 2020
A Walk on Peat Road Exhibition Picha Poa 2020
A Walk on Peat Road Exhibition Picha Poa 2020
A Walk on Peat Road Exhibition Picha Poa 2020
Don’t hesitate to contact us if you are interested in buying one of our pictures: pichapoaworkshop@gmail.com
Take a look at our A Walk on Peat Road exhibition. Some further making of pictures you can find here:
The pictures (as exhibition piece 20x30cm, Forex print) are all for sale and available for 100,00€ (+ shipping costs) each. You can fell free to even give more if you want to support Gyanodaya school and the kids of the photography class. The revenues shall be used to build up a proper and regular photography class at Gyanodaya that also upcoming classes can learn the basics of photography.
