Kiran Ambwani

Film, Photo & Digital Media

Specialities: Nature-focused art, Outdoor Art-making, Printmaking, Photography, Public Installations

Contact Info

Email address

contact@kiranambwani.com

Website address

www.kiranambwani.com

Where Artist lives

Montreal

Resides in

English Montreal

Social Media

Experience working with

Cycle 3 Elementary
Secondary 1 & 2
Secondary 3 & 4
Secondary 5
CEGEP
Senior Citizens

Lifelong Learners

Adult Learners

I regularly explore the following Broad Areas of Learning/Themes in my work

Health and Wellbeing
Personal and Career Planning
Environmental Awareness and Consumer Rights and Responsibilities
Media Literacy
Citizenship and Community Life (Identity & Belonging)

I've received CHSSN Mental Health Initiative training for:

Youth
Older adults

Listed in the Quebec Culture in the Schools Repertoire

I have experience working with

Photovoice

I can facilitate virtual creative experiences

School board areas you are available to work in

Central Quebec - Quebec City & Environs
Central Quebec - Rural/Regional Schools
Cree School Board
Eastern Shores - Gaspe/Coast
Eastern Shores - Lower St. Lawrence
Eastern Shores - Magdalen Islands
Eastern Townships
English Montreal
Kativik School Board
Lester B Pearson - outside Montreal transportation areas (STM)
Lester B Pearson - within public transit area
Littoral - Lower North Shore
New Frontiers - Chateauguay
New Frontiers - Chateauguay Valley
Riverside
Sir Wilfrid Laurier – Lanaudiere
Sir Wilfrid Laurier – Laval
Western Quebec - Northern area
Western Quebec - Southern area (Hull, Wakefield etc)

Travel

I am available for travel within the same day
I am available for travel overnight
An extended residency is an option

A portrait, documentary and fine arts photographer based in Montreal, I freelance for advertising agencies, publications, and non-profit organizations. My projects have been published and exhibited internationally, with the aim to support, connect, inspire & educate communities. In recent years I have been sharing my passion for photography by facilitating informal photography workshops and cultural mediation activities for various schools and communities in Canada & abroad.

Commissioned by non-profit Tous les Enfants de L’Autre Monde (TEAM) to conduct photography workshops for 14 children in the fishing village of La Chorrera, epicenter of the earthquake in Ecuador in 2016. The resulting images were exhibited in their newly built church.

Photo workshops & art therapy project for a 6th grade class with learning difficulties from Jean-Baptiste Meilleur school in Hochelaga, Montreal. The students visually explored their neighborhood and the resulting images were exhibited at the Écomusée du Fier Monde in Montreal in February 2020.

Photography exhibition at the Prince of Wales museum in Mumbai in January 2020, resulting from workshops for a group of 9 young residents of Dharavi slum in Mumbai, India.

Cultural mediation project in fall 2019 with a 6th grade class of Barclay School in Parc-Ex, Montreal.

Lens Art, a ‘train the trainer’ mentoring project (in progress) with refugee youth in Ottawa, in collaboration with the Social Planning Council of Ottawa.

Creative Approach and Experiences Offered

My photography workshops aim to provide a creative space for photographic exploration, team-building, communication and self-expression. Participants learn about photography and the artistic practice of a professional photographer. After learning the basic concepts of photography, participants go out to visually explore their lives and communities. Workshops can be general or focused on a particular theme (wellness, identity, resilience) or creative technique (sun prints, pinhole cameras, macro nature photography, etc). I have conducted informal workshops for various communities and different age groups, in Canada and abroad, with the aim of helping participants explore and develop their unique visual voice. The resulting visual explorations typically culminate in an online or printed exhibition to share with the public.

One-Day Event Description

Life in Blue

We will use the sun to create blue and white prints! In this camera-less workshop, students will learn about cyanotypes, an old alternative photographic printing process. They will be encouraged to bring objects of significance to them to experiment with and to create their cyanotypes. After making smaller individual pieces, students could participate in the creation of a larger collective piece. Teachers can organize a mini exhibition of the works at the end of the project!

0-30 students per group

Here is a video of a cyanotype project my colleague Chloe Charbonnier and I facilitated with seniors and youth in Hochelaga neighbourhood in summer 2022, a project conceptualized by the collective Petits Oeuvres Multimedias (POM):
https://vimeo.com/930702054?share=copy

A mix of science and art, this is a super fun creative project which I have had facilitated for various groups over the past few years, and the participants have always had a lot of fun learning about this alternative printing process and using the sun to print their images!