Irfan from the Photography workshop in Chimbel

Irfan has been with the Photography Workshop of Laboratory of Smiles in Chimbel for two years.

This year one of his photographs was sent for an International Online Photography Competition, ‘Postcards from Home: Show us where you are from”, organised by The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA).

His photograph was amongst the top 20 received from all across the world. CONGRATULATIONSSSSSS IRFAN!

The photograph (titled 'Laundry') that was shortlisted in the top 20.

If you’d like to view the other 19 photographs, log on to http://connect.state.gov/page/photo-contest

Mr Technician fixing lights

We arrived at Shanti Niketan at 2pm. The school was empty. No children around, the lights were up, the stage was set and the checklist seemed well-checked. The lights were tested the previous evening; it was time to test the sound. Everything seemed fine, but five years of experience with technological breakdowns in the Goa shows had us ready to face all sorts of last-minute catastrophes. (2 of the 3 CD players did not end up working in the first performance and the technician was seen balancing on his toes and stretching his hands out over the sound mixer to hold on to a loose wire. Erica, in the meanwhile, was sharpening her chopper to slice the technician’s head off. And while all this drama was taking place, Sonia promptly replaced their players with our laptops and the audience hadn’t a clue of the balancing act backstage.)

Erica and Sonia, content with the sound check. (Least did they know!)

Rewinding back to 4pm. The children trickled in very excited to see their school transformed into a performance arena with lights, amplifiers and the works. Least did they know that they, too, would be soon transformed sporting colourful costumes and make-up. 6:30pm. The entrance of the school was overcrowded with an eager audience who engaged themselves at the photo installation of the Chimbel photography workshop. Meanwhile, the little actors took their positions. 7pm. We began.

The photo installation of the Chimbel photography workshop

Ninga and Solomon, opening the show with their act on stilts.

In the shadows of the dark

Playing between light and shadow

A balance of sorts

Sameness...in balance...imbalance.

Sangeeta -- holding on and letting go.

Winged freedom.

The crazy spinners.

The Balancing Act - FOR REAL!

It’s hard to express the many emotions that are running through us right now. Bags are packed, the goodbyes have begun and we’re ready to close this year’s project. We thank everyone at El Shaddai for supporting our every whim, a big big thank you to the Association of Mercurio di Riva del Garda where Sonia and Diego work, the Province of Trento who fund a big part of the project and all those who have made this beautiful dream possible.

The hardest part is to say goodbye to the children. But the best part is to know that they’ll be with us wherever we go, forever. Grazie! Shukriya! And dear Goa…thanks for all the fish.

LABORATORY OF SMILES 2010

Flyer for the final show

The show is called The Balancing Act, as the theme of the performance revolves around the B word. The show will begin with the photography exhibition from Chimbel, which will have videos, photos as well as interactive installations from the workshop. Little actors on stilts and some behind white masks will then call upon the audience and take them on a 45 minute journey through various meanings and perspectives of ‘balance’.

30th November, 7pm. Shanti Niketan School, Assagaon, Goa.
Balance your way through!

Rehearsing with the masks

The fantastic Raju on aerials

The ball balance act

In the dance workshop

Roberta with her dancing butterflies

November 19, International Day for Prevention of Child Abuse

Ninga leading the parade

Yesterday, November 19, was the International Day for Prevention of Child Abuse and El Shaddai hosted this day with much ado. For over a month they have been creating awareness for this day and its cause and yesterday it all came together with a grand parade on the streets of Panjim. More than 1000 children from all the centres of El Shaddai along with a few more NGOs from Goa joined the parade screaming out slogans to make people aware of Child Rights and Child Abuse.

The unicyclists getting ready to begin the parade

Timira and Diego juggling through the streets

And leading the parade was our fantastic team of Laboratory of Smiles on stilts, on unicycles, juggling, spinning poi, dancing, blowing bubbles and attracting all the attention that was around. After an hour of parading, we all assembled at Azad Maidan, Panjim, where there was a little performance by the children. Here are some of the photographs by our beautiful photographer Pabli from the parade. Enjoy!

It’s been only one week at the poi&juggling workshop and most of the kids already know the basic moves that usually takes more than 2 weeks to learn. I’m convinced that some of the kids in the group have been born only to spin poi on this planet! Two of the unicycles have finally got thicker tyres, which Diego tells me, will help the boys jump higher. Can’t wait to see that happen. It’s anyway such a kick to see the boys and the ever-cool Purnima ride the unicycle from their residential home to school every day. Sonia’s group has been practising even harder than before. At first, the rains had been giving them some trouble, they had to reluctantly skip a few days, but the group has gone beyond that now. Come rain, sun or snow, this group clearly never stops. Not even for a water break!

Moving to what happens at 10am every day. Enter Erica and Roberta. Followed by a train of little children with the most bizarre objects. One day, they all walk in with chairs, another day with a long unending piece of white material. The following day with three balls, each one as big as one child and yet another day they all walk in wearing white masks. Nobody really knows what madness Erica, Roberta and the children are upto. We’ve heard it’s a work in progress and it’s turning out quite well. The children are tight-lipped and so is Erica and Roberta. Pabli, our ever-dearest photographer was allowed to step in to the mysterious workshop for a few moments, so here’s a sneek peek at what’s been cooking in there.

–Timira.

Outside the center we set up our own open studio. Sarfarz and Afzal brought bamboos and a ladder to hold up a big black cloth, which was the background of our studio. We wrote a note on the blackboard and displayed it outside:

” अ‍ॅपने घर से कोई चीज़ लाओ और अप्नि फोतो खिचवओ. फोतो सोम्वार को मिलेगि  “
(Bring an object from home and get your picture clicked. Photographs will be delivered on Monday.)

Thomas, Amjad, Asif and Sanjay promptly climbed the roof to secure the bamboos and the cloth. At 3.30pm began the session. Some participants turned up with friends and we were flocked with children; the scene was ‘undisciplined’ driving our lead photographer crazy!

After a while pace picked up even more and adults began to come in
1. A lady with a child and a ‘thaili’
2. A the neighbor and his cat
3. A man with a picture of him and Amitabh Bacchan
4. Another man with a ‘taavieez’
5. A man with a plenitude of dabbas et al.

Our photographers finally began to make lines and waited for their turns, some over-shot their ’10-picture’ limit because they got a bit too involved and others were busy catching hold and convincing by-passers.

The session was a success for the children did learn; had we waited longer we would’ve had many many more. But for the sun dimming and substantial drops of rain getting at us. We now bid goodbye and thank you to our ‘models’ and gathered in class to review the session and discuss the photographs to be taken individually at home and around their topic: “mera culture” as well as some self-portraits.

In no time the roof was climbed, the set taken down, wrap up and ciao-grazie we were done for the week!

Erica and Roberta in the cold wet rain

Another hilarity that’s been going on the last few days is Diego’s skype meetings with Laura and Stefano involving some macintosh-related video-editing problems. The hilarious bit is that for some reason they never have a microphone, so while Laura is hysterically typing instructions Diego is busy lifting the fancy macintosh-computer in front of the webcamera on another computer and verifying sockets, wires and other plug-ins while squinting to read what Laura has to say…I mean type. (And while all this was happening, I fetched my camera, changed my lens and adjusted the many settings to take another timeless picture. Hugs to Laura who stopped doing everything to smack some lipstick on for this picture. So, there she is, our pretty Laura!)

And now for the workshop updates.

This week the two remaining workshops finally began. My juggling and poi workshop had an incredibile first day. 12-year-old Cheryl started juggling three balls on the very first day! The six who chose to learn poi started spinning moves in 20 minutes that usually takes a minimum of 3 days to learn. (Note to self: Rework workshop. They’re going to learn in one month more than what I have learnt in an entire year!)

Diego’s video-editing workshop is a continuation of Laura’s work last year. Laura had worked on shooting with a digital video camcorder and, this year, Diego plans to close the workshop by teaching them to edit footage. Thus, making a complete video/film. I have been giving him company on his workshop as we didn’t expect the boys to understand his Italian English, but the group surprised us once again. Diego said “trach” instead of “track” and confused “before” with “after” and the boys comprehended it all. I just sat there, and in the process learnt a bit of editing myself.

Before the blog posts ends here’s a photo update of the Monocycle Workshop. Diego has two groups, the ‘beginners’ from this year and the ‘pros’ from last year. This is what the pros have been upto. More photo updates tomorrow. Enjoy!         –Timira.

* * *

It is a bit tiresome entering the second week (for us yes; the children I am not sure). This is an intense process, we are heading in an experimental direction to discover our culture and identity through photography. This is supplemented by self-reflective exercises, although the crux of it all is to sharpen observation (which is the key in our opinion is the beginning of the possibility of good photography/art).

Today most work was in separate groups; we began with revisiting yesterday’s session on My Culture to locate ourselves in this context. Few children then sat with our leading photographer and had their works analysed in more detail, few went out on an observation trail and some sat with me to work on directions we can take to further question ‘who am I’.

Words from their first written reflection were picked out : Mother, Father, Sister, School, Play, Food, Native-town, Dreams etc. The next task is to describe these further for example: If I wrote I like ‘goolab jamun’ I ask myself what is it exactly, where does it come from, what do i feel when i eat it, when do i like to eat it. Or if I wrote I live with my mother and her name is Slima, I can ask where does she come from, how does she look, what does she wear and why, what are her peculiar habits and so on. Every child was given a folder with coloured paper to write further reflection; these can be in any language and can also be drawn if they prefer.

The groups kept rotating and we also discussed what the groups had observed on their observation trails. Children had spotted women thinking on their windows, cycles being repaired, tyres being painted, children crying and mothers beating them, fruits being sold in a basket, fish being dried and cooked etc.

This after a pause was followed by a portrait session of the kids with the objects they’d brought. We finally went through a presentation on ‘Types of Photography’ (portraits being one of them). We also discussed by chance what the worth of pictures is and what copyright means.

On Thursday we have portrait session whereof they will click images of friends and family who will come to the ‘studio’ with an object from home. This will be the start of the second roll; we all look forward!

Finally objects arrived from home; some unique and interesting pieces!

1. A sandalwood doll from Karnataka which one rubs with water on a block of wood. The paste is consumed to sooth burning sensations in the moutha nd sromach. A block of dark sandal would serve the purpose, but a doll is carved so as to sell something beautiful.
2. A box with compartments specially for Pan.
3. A set of needles and wool to make decorations for the door and tables.
4. A little keroscene lamp.
5. A bottle with mirror work used to store Sindoor.
6. A black earthen pot to store or heat water.
7. An earthen sealed pot to save money.
8. A wooden tool to make Chakli’s.

Most gave us a written reflection of “Who am I” and we had most rolls developed with indexes (except four).

We discussed each object, whether it is still used or not, how it made its way to their homes and so on. After about 50 minutes around this we broke for ten minutes to set up for more pictures. When they returned we began a photo presentation on very culture specific images (houses, people, clothes, festivals, food etc.) The presentation began with a simple instruction, ” In this exercise we will only look at images and retain our thoughts/feelings about them. Once we are done each one will express what they thought and saw.” There was not a word during the slides.

On a blackboard key words from their impressions were jotted down:

THERE/HERE,PEOPLE,DIFFERENT,CLOTHES,FOOD,WORK,CULTURE,ANIMALS,DECORATION,RELIGION,
MARRIAGE,HOUSES,TOOLS,VESSELS,FESTIVALS,HABITS,BELIEFS,ACCESORIES,TRADITION,RITUALS

“we also have this”

“we don’t have that”

“they/us….same/similar/different”

Next we tried to derive further a unifying idea from these words and at a certain point erased everything except CULTURE. The word HUMAN was also added and we tried to make sense of they’d brought in this light.

“MY CULTURE !!! ” and we had arrived at the possibility of excavating through each one’s culture through photography!!

We have to look at everything around us at home with this in mind: where do those things and habits around us come from? Can I capture them honestly? Photographs cannot really lie, like words!

” chimbal was a jungle 60 years ago”

“not so many houses”

” here religions and roots have exchanged habits”

About 50 minutes and we asked if we should break, but the little visual anthropologists refused to stop!

* * *

The last session was an analysis of some of the pictures, we browsed through mistakes and miracles; some of them up here. Tommorow we pick up where we left of.