Prof. Shyam Narayan Lal
The Indian Institute of Management Jammu is all set to organise an International Painting Workshop from 12 to 16 January 2026. The workshop will bring together twenty-one painters of repute from India and abroad and will also include a group of emerging artists drawn from different regions of the country. This initiative does not stand in isolation. It follows three painting workshops conducted during 2025 and is best understood as a continuation of that academic engagement rather than as a separate cultural programme. Taken together, these initiatives reflect a sustained institutional effort to explore the place of creative practice within management education.
The story started a year earlier, in 2025, when three painting workshops unfolded one after another, each leaving behind traces of dialogue, discovery, and daring. Those gatherings planted seeds, and now, this international workshop is the flowering of that vision – not a separate cultural spectacle, but a continuation of an academic journey.Together, these workshops form a narrative of persistence: an institution daring to ask how art and management might converse, how brushstrokes might illuminate boardrooms, and how imagination might reshape leadership. In this story, IIM Jammu is not simply hosting artists; it is weaving creativity into the very fabric of management education, reminding us that to lead is also to dream.
The three painting workshops conducted last year were conceived as exploratory efforts. They were not designed as extracurricular activities, nor were they intended to function as cultural interludes within an otherwise conventional academic calendar. Their purpose was more probing in nature. The intention was to examine whether sustained engagement with artistic practice could be meaningfully introduced into the learning environment of management education, and whether such engagement could alter how students approach learning, uncertainty, and reflection. What became visible over time was not excitement or novelty, but a quieter and more lasting change in student engagement.
In November 2025, two contemporary painting workshops-one led by K. K. Gandhi and the other by Bhushan Kesar-placed students in deliberately restrictive working conditions. Materials were limited, deadlines were compressed, and the emphasis shifted from individual output to collective effort. Verbal instruction was sparse. In the absence of clear direction, students had to rely on intuition, observation, and collaboration. These conditions unsettled familiar managerial habits that privilege clarity, speed, and efficiency. Instead, they created space for slower, uncertain, and at times uncomfortable forms of engagement, which gradually opened up new ways of thinking.
Alongside these contemporary experiments, the one-week Basohli painting workshop held in December 2025 introduced a different pedagogical experience. Rooted in a regional artistic tradition, the workshop demanded discipline, repetition, and prolonged immersion. Learning did not proceed through experimentation or expressive freedom. It unfolded through careful attention to form, patience, and adherence to an inherited visual language. Students were introduced to a pedagogical mode grounded in apprenticeship and hands-on practice, approaches rarely encountered in modern management curricula. The encounter between contemporary experimentation and traditional immersion reshaped how participants understood learning itself.
The International Painting Workshop scheduled for January 2026 builds directly upon these earlier experiences. Its five-day structure is a conscious academic decision. The duration allows participants to move beyond initial hesitation or curiosity into a phase where engagement deepens through repetition, difficulty, and gradual adjustment. Unlike short workshops that focus primarily on exposure or demonstration, this programme is designed to support incremental learning. Progress is uneven. Moments of uncertainty or frustration are not treated as failure, but as part of the learning process.
Several pedagogical features from the earlier workshops remain, though they are reworked rather than repeated. Restricted materials, collaborative tasks, time-bound exercises, and delayed explanation continue to function as learning devices. These constraints interrupt habitual problem-solving patterns and resist the impulse for quick resolution. Students are required to remain attentive even when outcomes are unclear. Over time, such engagement cultivates patience and reflective attention-qualities that management curricula rarely address directly.
As the workshop unfolds, students begin to recognise the difference between activity and understanding, between being occupied and actually learning. They encounter the limits of purely instrumental reasoning and are pushed to rely on observation, intuition, silence, and shared interpretation. This kind of learning is not easily articulated or measured. It does not lend itself to immediate summary. Yet it leaves a durable imprint on how students think about decision-making, collaboration, and leadership.
What distinguishes this initiative within management education is the way visual arts practice is treated as a pedagogical medium rather than a cultural supplement. The workshop does not sit alongside academic instruction, nor does it provide a break from it. Instead, it creates a parallel learning environment that temporarily sets aside familiar classroom routines-lectures, cases, and assessments-and replaces them with sustained practice. This shift allows cognitive, emotional, and ethical capacities to develop in ways that conventional teaching methods often acknowledge but struggle to cultivate.
The international dimension adds depth without altering the core intent of the programme. Artists from different cultural backgrounds participate not as visiting instructors but as collaborators, working alongside students in shared studio spaces. Authority structures become more fluid. Learning takes shape through observation, informal dialogue, imitation, and mutual adjustment. Cultural difference is encountered through the act of working together rather than through formal explanation. This stands in contrast to conventional models of international exchange, which typically rely on short visits or structured interactions.
From an academic perspective, the workshop becomes a setting where leadership qualities that resist easy codification can take root. The ability to remain steady in uncertainty, to exercise collaborative judgement, to act with ethical sensitivity, and to practice patience cannot be transmitted through lectures or case studies alone. These capacities emerge only through sustained involvement in contexts that mirror the ambiguity and relational complexity of real organisational life.
The orientation of the workshop aligns with the spirit of the National Education Policy 2020, particularly its emphasis on holistic, experiential, and multidisciplinary learning. By integrating artistic practice into management education, the initiative challenges rigid disciplinary boundaries and affirms the value of tacit and embodied knowledge. Its emphasis on process and reflection marks a shift away from examination-driven learning towards deeper engagement. At the same time, it resonates with the broader vision of Viksit Bharat, which calls for leaders who combine professional competence with cultural awareness, emotional resilience, and ethical judgement.
For students of IIM Jammu, the workshop complements formal management training in ways that are not immediately visible but are deeply formative. Engagement with artistic practice unsettles efficiency-driven habits and opens space for alternative ways of thinking and working. Emotional responses such as hesitation, frustration, or doubt are treated as part of learning rather than as obstacles. Over time, students develop greater self-awareness and reflective capacity.
At the institutional level, the movement from short contemporary workshops to a regionally grounded immersion and finally to an internationally networked programme reflects deliberate pedagogical development rather than episodic experimentation. Each initiative informed the next, gradually integrating duration, scope, and feasibility into a coherent framework. This sustained commitment distinguishes IIM Jammu within the wider IIM ecosystem by treating creative practice as part of its pedagogical infrastructure rather than as a peripheral cultural activity.
Taken together, the three workshops conducted in 2025 and the International Painting Workshop of 12-16 January 2026 form a cumulative pedagogical sequence. The earlier initiatives established direction and feasibility; the present workshop deepens those insights through scale, duration, and international collaboration. Rather than episodic cultural experimentation, this progression reflects a clear institutional intent: to embed visual arts practice meaningfully within management education and to cultivate reflective, adaptive, and ethically grounded leaders capable of engaging with complexity and uncertainty.
(The writer is Chairperson, Anandam, the Centre for Happiness, IIM Jammu)