The Public Arts Trust of India is actively working with Government Museums and schools to facilitate more equitable access to arts and culture for all of Jodhpur’s communities.

Creative Arts Education Programme

Developed in partnership with a pedagogical research lab, LAND (Learning through Arts Narrative and Discourse), our Creative Arts Education programme is actively collaborating with school educators working in Government Schools within the Walled City of Jodhpur to develop and trial a new creative arts curriculum and learning methodologies.

Learning alongside local and global educators and practitioners, the programme has been designed while keeping in mind the well-being and outcomes of the learners, educators and the communities it interacts with. Committed to the transformative potential of the creative arts through a community-based collaborative effort, the programme aims to bring lived experience and collaborative thinking to the core of learning and knowledge acquisition. It focuses on creativity, well-being and the learner's community to present unique, individual-centric models of information interaction to develop a creative project that nurtures the entrepreneurial and design thinking abilities of the learner.

Phase 3: The Current Cycle | Cohort 2025–2026

Building on a robust legacy, the 2025–2026 cycle expands with a new cohort of Teaching Fellows engaging a diverse group of learners in a transdisciplinary inquiry titled, ‘Water as a Carrier and Carriers of Water’. This year, the programme is actively running across five partner schools—Mahatma Gandhi Rajkiya Vidyalaya (Sarafa Bazar), Government Senior Secondary School (Kotwali), Hueson Mandi Girls School, Shrimati Mukulika, Baid Rajkiya Mahavidyala (Badi Rajmahal School), and PM Shri Mahatma Gandhi School (Jalori Gate) to map the city’s ecological narrative through this central theme.

Applications for future Fellows to join this programme will open in August 2026

Phase 2: Jodhpur Arts Week Edition 1.0 (2024–2025)

Where the Classroom Met the City

The second phase marked a significant expansion, mobilizing an enlarged cohort of Teaching Fellows to guide a growing community of learners through a transformative pedagogical journey. This culminated in the inaugural Edition 1.0, engaging a vast public audience across the city. Under the theme Haath Ro Hunar (Skill of the Hand), the programme celebrated collaborative authorship, where student projects were co-authored with master artisans, underscoring the vital role of grassroots knowledge within the creative ecosystem.

• Mahatma Gandhi Rajkiya Vidyalaya (Sarafa Bazar) : Sounds and Seasons decoded Ragmala paintings as ecological texts.

• Government Senior Secondary School (Kotwali) : Soil and Soul the project investigated soil as a living ecosystem.

• Hueson Mandi Government Girls Senior Secondary School :Voices of Blue archived the city’s identity using the Kavad storytelling tradition.

• Shrimati Mukulika Baid Rajkiya Mahavidyalay - Badi Rajmahal School : Roots and Tales merged folklore with the ecology of the mud wasp through intricate dioramas.

• PM Shri Mahatma Gandhi School (Jalori Gate) : Living Archive transformed learners into narrators at the Rao Jodha Desert Rock Park, guiding visitors through the region's geological history.

Phase 1: October 2024 - October 2025

During the first pilot year, 10 Teaching Fellows were recruited to the programme to work with Heusen Mandi Girls School, Heusen Mandi Boys School, Jalori Gate Senior Secondary Girls School, Raj Balika Senior Secondary Girls School and Kotwali Senior Secondary Girls School. 

Bringing arts education to children who previously had no access to the arts, the programme has been curated under three main themes which each school will explore independently to present multiple projects based on research and creative engagement with their community.

These themes include:

• Folklore - Folktales present the landscape of the collective memory and heart of a community. The engagement with folklores can reveal mysteries and knowledge that has traveled through generations and shaped the structures of social interaction as well as hopes and fantasies of individuals. We shall explore folklores to seek multiple questions and rediscover the self through a journey in the living past.

• Museum as living space - Museums have been relegated to being a sanitized space that are accessible to only a few due to their structures and curation. What becomes part of a museum and what does not ? How did an object become a carrier of history ? What does it do today ? We will visit museums and look at the lives of the objects in space and redefine what a museum can be and what it can do. We shall think about ways of bringing a museum to the everyday fabric of living.

• Ecology - The idea of inspiration comes from breath! The idea is inhaled and becomes a motivating factor in shaping our perspectives. Ecology is a treasure of wisdom which presents the questions and the answers. The projects will enquire into the ecological sensibilities that shape our lives and bring focus on careful nurturance of methods that go along with nature instead of against it, in the name of development. The wisdom of architecture, land, water bodies, the sky and the living breath in each being shall be the spirit of these projects.

This will increase the impact of learning through various subjects like history, geography, science, literature, design thinking, social sciences and so on. The soft skills that this will inculcate in the learner are 

• Growth mindset 

• Critical and Creative Thinking 

• Cognitive Empathy

• Entrepreneurial skills 

• Wellbeing 

• Holistic development of the learner.