When Amir Parsa, art educator at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, takes a group of visitors on an art tour, he first gives them a minute to look at the painting. Without going into interpretation, he asks the group to describe what they see. And this is not just any group of people, but those affected by Alzheimer’s disease.

With the static work of art facing them, the observers who are accompanied by their caretakers, get talking and interpreting what they see in a Seurat or a Marcel Duchamp painting. “Their husbands, wives or children confess that they open up in ways they never did at home,” says Parsa, head convenor of the Alzheimer’s Project at MoMA.

The project is one of many such initiatives by the museum and has now succeeded in connecting 25 museums all over the US with the Alzheimer’s Project. In India, to deliver a series of lectures and workshops on the broader theme of arts education and community participation over the next four days, the vibrant poet, writer, art theorist and photographer is all set for his talk at the Galerie Mirchandani and Steinruecke in Colaba.

Born and raised in Tehran till the age of 10, Parsa’s family reached Washington DC at the time when Iran was brewing with the Islamic revolution “but not because of it”, he says. Educated in French schools all his life, Parsa confesses his artistic sensibilities are heavily influenced and shaped by French literature, art and philosophy. “But my entry into the realm of education happened quiet by chance,” he says.

Working with MoMA since the last five years, Parsa, 41, believes in the therapeutic potential of art. “It’s not hard to understand that one is affected by one’s surroundings. So the moment one is in the presence of a work of art and is asked to interpret it, we observed that people react more freely and make personal connections.”  

The lecture series began on Wednesday with interactive presentations by city curator Beth Citron and art critic Girish Shahane, beside Parsa. It will be followed by by lectures at the NCPA on Thursday and Friday and at the Bhau Daji Lad Museum on Sunday.

“The aim of these lectures is to ask questions about how we perceive art. What are our notions of what constitutes art and how do they work in conjunction with fields such as health or literacy because, after all, art is a social and political phenomenon,” says Parsa.