The Art of Noticing

    A workshop on observation, curation, and connection of ideas through writing,

    Across April 26–27 and May 3–4, 2025, the workshop unfolded as a laboratory for observation, writing, and creative connection.

    About The Workshop:

    This 3-hour online session  uses writing as the primary medium to explore practices of deep noticing that can be adapted to any creative discipline.

    Through carefully designed exercises, participants:

    • Extract observations from a single external source.

    • Document the textures, objects, relationships, and habits that compose their personal world.

    • Merge unrelated elements from both these worlds to create something that felt distinctly theirs.

    • Develop practical systems of collecting and organizing creative material.

    Everyone leaves with a completed written piece and a repeatable method for moving from observation to connection to creation.

    Ideal for writers, artists, designers, photographers, and anyone seeking to transform observation into creation.

    About the Facilitator:

    Ankita Shah is an Indian-Nepali writer whose essays and poetry create an interplay between observation, memory, and culture. As co-founder of The Poetry Club (2013-2019), she led a 7,000-strong community of writers through curated reading sessions focused on style exploration and feedback exchange. Her published works include The Eye of the Needle (2019), documenting how a community of women in Rajasthan’s Thar desert transformed embroidery from cultural practice to economic lifeline, preserving heritage while reshaping their community’s future. Shah is also a performance poet, having taken her work across platforms like NCPA, Spoken Fest, Kala Ghoda Festival. As a curator, she has also produced over 50 inter-disciplinary shows at the G5A Foundation for Contemporary Culture. She writes and publishes personal essays every fortnight on her Substack, Life, Annotated.

    Subscribe to our newsletter To Recieve Updates

      The Latest
      • The Art of Noticing

        A creative writing workshop exploring observation, connection, and expression

      • Snackable

        A generative workshop exploring the craft and play of flash fiction

      • Kitchen Counter Zines

        Hands-on food zine workshop blending recipes, reflections, and storytelling

      • Writing from Grief & Grace

        A generative writing journey through grief, grace, and healing

      You May Also Like
      • Lakshmi, a Traveler, a memoir translated from the Tamil by Kalpana Karunakaran

        Kindness or its absence can take many forms and manifest in myriad ways

      • The Dead Bougainvillea by Lavanya Arora

        i’ve been awake for three days work keeps getting piled on top of each

      • Five Poems By Shikhandin

        One April evening I saw the dance of fireflies Small smoulders coruscating

      • Preface to Mumbai Traps by Anju Makhija

        the years of growing up were spent in finding ways to belong and belonging in