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Lighting Minds: How Velammal’s Chitravathi Center Uses Art and Design for Student Wellbeing
Mathew Sebastian
Founding Board Member, HCD Institute
This Diwali, we are starting a series called Lighting Minds. Each episode tells the story of a school, in India or across the Middle East, where students are finding their own light through art, design and an HCD Lab. Our first story comes from Chennai, from a creative studio inside one of the city’s best-known school networks.
A room full of colour, with a quieter purpose
The Chitravathi Center for Creativity is the art and design department of The Velammal International School, Chennai, part of the Velammal school network. Walk in and you see red and yellow walls hung with students’ own canvases, rows of easels, trays of oil pastels, clay reliefs drying on newspaper, and work tables where students sketch side by side.
The centre is led by Biveesh B, Head of Department, and his team, with contemporary artist Murali Cheeroth as mentor. Murali’s own work has been exhibited from the Kerala Museum in Kochi to the Royal College of Art in London, and he brings that practice into the studio. What sets Chitravathi apart is not the equipment. It is the intent. The centre treats art as more than a subject on the timetable. It is a place where students can slow down, express what they cannot yet say in words, and find out who they are.
Why art and design matter for student wellbeing
Students today carry a lot: exams, comparison, screens, and a constant sense of being measured. A studio offers something different. Nothing is marked right or wrong in the first sketch. Mistakes become layers. A blank sheet becomes something that belongs to the student alone.
Watching the students at Chitravathi, a few patterns stand out:
Expression before explanation. Painting and drawing give students a way to work through feelings and ideas before they have the words for them.
Making builds agency. Shaping clay or finishing a canvas is proof, in the student’s own hands, that they can start something and see it through.
Being seen. Exhibitions open to parents and visitors turn private work into shared pride. Students are recognised for who they are, not only for their marks.
Thinking together. Group discussions and critiques teach students to listen, to explain their choices, and to take feedback without losing confidence.
This is self-discovery in practice. It is also, quite simply, good for young people’s mental health: a calm, creative space in the school day where every child has a voice.
What the HCD Lab adds
From the next academic year, The Velammal International School will host an HCD Lab with the Chitravathi Center for Creativity. The lab brings the design thinking curriculum created by DIC Hub, IIT Hyderabad and delivered by HCD Institute, DIC Hub, IIT Hyderabad faculty, across Grades 6 to 12.
Art gives students a voice. Design thinking turns that voice outward. Students learn to observe the people around them, frame real problems, sketch and prototype ideas, and present their work to a jury. The curiosity and confidence that Chitravathi already nurtures become the starting point for solving problems that matter to other people.
For us, this is the ideal home for an HCD Lab: a school that already values making, reflection and the whole child. See how HCD Lab @ School works.
A first cohort at IIT Hyderabad
The partnership starts this month. A group of Velammal students, from Grade 6 to Grade 9, travels with their teachers to DIC Hub, IIT Hyderabad for a five-day design thinking immersion. They will work in studios, meet researchers and founders, and take part in a jury at the end of the week. We will share their story in a later episode.
A model other schools can follow
Many schools already have an art room, a library corner or an Atal Tinkering Lab. The lesson from Chitravathi is to start from what you have. A space where students make things with their hands, show their work and talk about it is already halfway to a design lab. The HCD Lab adds structure, a curriculum and a path from a classroom idea to a real project.
A Diwali wish
Diwali is, in many ways, a festival of design. Families shape diyas, draw rangoli at the doorstep, and arrange light to welcome others in. Every lamp is a small act of making something beautiful for someone else.
To the students and teachers of Velammal and the Chitravathi Center, to every school we work with across India and the Middle East, and to children everywhere: Happy Diwali. May this festival bring you light, curiosity and the courage to make something new.
Our thanks to M.V.M. Sasikumar, Director, Velammal Educational Trust, to Murali Cheeroth, mentor at the Chitravathi Center for Creativity, and to Biveesh B and the Chitravathi team for opening their studio to us.
Schools that want to bring an HCD Lab to their campus can write to us at dic@hcd.institute or get in touch.
Lighting Minds: How Velammal’s Chitravathi Center Uses Art and Design for Student Wellbeing
Mathew Sebastian
Founding Board Member, HCD Institute
This Diwali, we are starting a series called Lighting Minds. Each episode tells the story of a school, in India or across the Middle East, where students are finding their own light through art, design and an HCD Lab. Our first story comes from Chennai, from a creative studio inside one of the city’s best-known school networks.
A room full of colour, with a quieter purpose
The Chitravathi Center for Creativity is the art and design department of The Velammal International School, Chennai, part of the Velammal school network. Walk in and you see red and yellow walls hung with students’ own canvases, rows of easels, trays of oil pastels, clay reliefs drying on newspaper, and work tables where students sketch side by side.
The centre is led by Biveesh B, Head of Department, and his team, with contemporary artist Murali Cheeroth as mentor. Murali’s own work has been exhibited from the Kerala Museum in Kochi to the Royal College of Art in London, and he brings that practice into the studio. What sets Chitravathi apart is not the equipment. It is the intent. The centre treats art as more than a subject on the timetable. It is a place where students can slow down, express what they cannot yet say in words, and find out who they are.
Why art and design matter for student wellbeing
Students today carry a lot: exams, comparison, screens, and a constant sense of being measured. A studio offers something different. Nothing is marked right or wrong in the first sketch. Mistakes become layers. A blank sheet becomes something that belongs to the student alone.
Watching the students at Chitravathi, a few patterns stand out:
Expression before explanation. Painting and drawing give students a way to work through feelings and ideas before they have the words for them.
Making builds agency. Shaping clay or finishing a canvas is proof, in the student’s own hands, that they can start something and see it through.
Being seen. Exhibitions open to parents and visitors turn private work into shared pride. Students are recognised for who they are, not only for their marks.
Thinking together. Group discussions and critiques teach students to listen, to explain their choices, and to take feedback without losing confidence.
This is self-discovery in practice. It is also, quite simply, good for young people’s mental health: a calm, creative space in the school day where every child has a voice.
What the HCD Lab adds
From the next academic year, The Velammal International School will host an HCD Lab with the Chitravathi Center for Creativity. The lab brings the design thinking curriculum created by DIC Hub, IIT Hyderabad and delivered by HCD Institute, DIC Hub, IIT Hyderabad faculty, across Grades 6 to 12.
Art gives students a voice. Design thinking turns that voice outward. Students learn to observe the people around them, frame real problems, sketch and prototype ideas, and present their work to a jury. The curiosity and confidence that Chitravathi already nurtures become the starting point for solving problems that matter to other people.
For us, this is the ideal home for an HCD Lab: a school that already values making, reflection and the whole child. See how HCD Lab @ School works.
A first cohort at IIT Hyderabad
The partnership starts this month. A group of Velammal students, from Grade 6 to Grade 9, travels with their teachers to DIC Hub, IIT Hyderabad for a five-day design thinking immersion. They will work in studios, meet researchers and founders, and take part in a jury at the end of the week. We will share their story in a later episode.
A model other schools can follow
Many schools already have an art room, a library corner or an Atal Tinkering Lab. The lesson from Chitravathi is to start from what you have. A space where students make things with their hands, show their work and talk about it is already halfway to a design lab. The HCD Lab adds structure, a curriculum and a path from a classroom idea to a real project.
A Diwali wish
Diwali is, in many ways, a festival of design. Families shape diyas, draw rangoli at the doorstep, and arrange light to welcome others in. Every lamp is a small act of making something beautiful for someone else.
To the students and teachers of Velammal and the Chitravathi Center, to every school we work with across India and the Middle East, and to children everywhere: Happy Diwali. May this festival bring you light, curiosity and the courage to make something new.
Our thanks to M.V.M. Sasikumar, Director, Velammal Educational Trust, to Murali Cheeroth, mentor at the Chitravathi Center for Creativity, and to Biveesh B and the Chitravathi team for opening their studio to us.
Schools that want to bring an HCD Lab to their campus can write to us at dic@hcd.institute or get in touch.