Kindness is a virtue. It is what makes us human, we are told. World Kindness Day (November 13) serves as a gentle reminder of this.
. Chennai-based Kindness Foundation celebrates it each year with a different community project that brings people in the city togetherto help them express kindness. “We ran this programme even through the pandemic and have done things like expression through the spoken word and photography,” says Mahima Poddar, founder and managing trustee of the Kindness Foundation.
This year’s theme is the expression of kindness through hands and gestures. A canvas with tracings of over 20 hand gestures, decorated and painted over three days by more than 1,200 people at the Anna Centenary Library is the centrepiece of the event. Each gesture on the canvas has a theme, ranging from mental health to environmental preservation and women’s rights and safety.
Canvas Visual artist Vijayaraghavan S, the mind behind the theme, explains that since the installation was placed at the library, it became essential to include elements of academia and literature. “We decided to use writings and quotes along with drawings of hand gestures. It means that knowledge should be shared and not held within one community,” he says, pointing to the 20-feet-wide canvas placed on the ground floor of the library.
“This library is a space open to everyone and not membership-based, and we wanted a space accessible to all age groups and social strata without barriers,” says M.