JOIN USThe students of the Department of Psychology of Jain University, recently organised a psychology fest, called Manosrujana 2013: Celebration of Creativity’, to commemorate the birthday of Leonardo Da Vinci.
The fest was about appreciating and recognising the creativity among the students and there were workshops, panel discussions and activities held in keeping with the theme. This unique event saw panelists from diverse sectors, ranging from the corporate sector, educational sector and the literary worlds, who gave their opinion and shared ideas on creativity.
The different competitions that were held, included ‘Movers and Shapers’, ‘I Am the One’ and a caption-writing contest. The ‘Movers and Shapers’ competition explored how communication, mostly done through verbal codes like language, can be highly restricting and how alternatives such as body movements, structure formation and other means of non-verbal communication can be used creatively to frame and understand a concept. Yeshaswini, a second-year student of MSc Psychology from Bangalore University, says, “The competition was more like a dance theatre, where mime and dance were innovatively mixed. It was fun and educative as well.” The audience was also engaged in this competition, with guessing the concepts presented by the participants.
In ‘I Am the One’, the students were asked to enact their favourite psychologists from Sigmund Freud to the contemporary Lev Vygotsky. Nayantara Kurpad, an MPhil student from Jain University, explains, “We were asked to portray our favourite psychologist and apply his theory in today’s world. I portrayed Pavlov and his theory of ‘classical conditioning’. When I was asked how this theory was applicable in a business module, I explained how after watching advertisements, people feel the urge to buy the product.”
She adds, “The other question asked was the limitation of this theory and I replied saying that it was an ‘involuntary thought process’, which is being researched now.” This competition intended to test skills of innovative expression of the otherwise theoretical concepts and ideas that were insightful and entertaining as well.
The caption-writing competition was an open contest where the participants were asked to come up with explanations to pictures, used in a psychological context.
“The competition got me thinking about how much pictures can talk,” says Raina, a participant. The fest also included different workshops and panel discussions. One of the workshops was a dance therapy, which was conducted by Veena Basavarajaiah, a dancer and educationalist, in the City. Prakruthi Jagadish, a student of MSc in Industrial psychology of Jain University, says, “The workshop wasn’t just a talk, but a different outlook to the forms of movements. Even though the participants were apprehensive at the beginning, the workshop got a good response and was very interactive and interesting.”