Sisters Anubha Doshi & Karishma Harlalka’s ‘Artsphere’ creates exclusive art space in Pune

Sisters Anubha Doshi and Karishma Harlalka started ‘Artsphere’ in the year 2013. Their main focus was to promote arts along with arts based therapies, all under one roof. Under their therapy vertical ‘Soulsphere’, many children and adults with various disabilities come seeking therapies. On completion of their sixth year, Anubha and Karishma are glad that they could reach out to many people though their various programmes.

When Anubha Doshi was working for a corporate company is when she realised that there were very few spaces that promoted art in her city Pune. Soon enough, Anubha realised that her true calling was to start an inclusive art space and that is how Artsphere was formed in the year 2013. Anubha collaborated with her sister Karishma Harlalka to start ‘Artsphere’ which is now garnering a lot of attention in Pune city. A space that promotes all arts forms, Artsphere has extensive programmes for children and adults with disabilities and therapeutic too.

Soulsphere offers arts based therapies which includes remediation, visual arts, and dance therapies along with meditation. People who need counselling and therapy also come to ‘Soulsphere’. They are mainly aiming at providing mental health services.

We started Artsphere together to introduce culture to East Pune. During that time, not a lot was happening in the cultural scene at East Pune. So we wanted to bring all art forms under one roof. Artsphere is a place with state of art facilities. Over the past few years, we have had many children, adults and elderly people take part in activities of Artsphere and Soulsphere-Karishma Harlalka, Co-founder, Artsphere.

Anubha and Karishma, who are professional psychologists, knew the needs and requirements of children with disabilities and that is what facilitated them to start a programme for them. “Both of us are therapy oriented professionals. Anubha started off with therapy work before starting Artsphere and she has a lot of experience working with children who have special needs”, says Karishma, who is also a trained classical dancer.

Though their main focus was to spread dance therapy, ‘Artsphere’ offers all kinds of art therapies and art forms now. “We have been getting great response now and starting something like this has been truly fulfilling. Our centre is purely art based. People come back to us and say that they feel great about being part of this and that is exactly what we wanted”, says Karishma.

“Our art based therapies aims at identifying each kid with special needs, their needs and requirements. We include movement visual art and music based activities in our sessions. The objectives range from motor skills to emotional wellbeing. We have worked with children who have autism, ADHD and cerebral palsy”, says Raksha Agarwal, psychologist.

“The remediation programme that I conduct for children at Artsphere covers a range of activities keeping in mind multiple intelligences and preferred learning style of each child. We focus on building communication, self-help skills, social interaction and emotional well-being”, says Nandita Paul, special educator.

You can contact Artsphere at +91 95617-20001.

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