Concept: Art as a Medium
"In October and November 2009 I travelled to Kolkata and Delhi to run creative workshops in a number of the DCT Centres. My plan was to introduce the women, teenagers and children to techniques they were unlikely to have encountered in India and allow them to experience the joy and fun of creativity for its own sake."

Many of the children made press prints, monoprints and clothes peg butterflies. The teenagers at Rajarhat explored their dreams for their futures by drawing symbolically within the shapes of mandalas. The women embroiderers plunged into garden collages made from brilliantly coloured tissue papers.

Expressing oneself through art is a powerful therapy. It was a great privilege to work with such dignified and courageous people and I am very much looking forward to returning this year.

Valarie Armstrong