While conducting various workshops for schoolchildren, Pune-based community archaeologist, artist and educator Dr Anagha Kusum has noticed that a contextual understanding of time and history is missing among them. Based on her experiences of interacting with kids from six districts of Maharashtra, Kusum decided to use visual art as the main tool in helping children understand history as a concept. “When we say history, we usually refer to political history. Children don’t really know how to study the subject, or how to seek stories from history. But you don’t have to go far to find history — it’s there in the objects around you,” she elaborates, adding that we only need to train our lens to observe them.

Dr Anagha Kusum