Since 2022, SPICE has had the honor of collaborating with CatchLight, a visual-first media organization that leverages the power of visual storytelling to inform, connect, and transform communities. CatchLight Global fellowship, launched in 2017, supports creative leaders who want to cultivate significant audience engagement through inventive distribution methods that will increase the impact of their work.

To help support the distribution of the visuals produced by CatchLight Global Fellows to schools, SPICE has been producing teacher guides in collaboration with several of the Fellows. This work has been made possible and generously supported by the Chao Minami Family Fund.

One of the 2019 CatchLight Global Fellows with whom SPICE has collaborated is Sparsh Ahuja, Founder and CEO of Project Dastaan. On April 17, 2025, the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco hosted an Opening Celebration of a Project Dastaan exhibit. This special presentation at the Asian Art Museum is Project Dastaan’s first showing in the United States.

Dr. Padma Dorje Maitland, Malavalli Family Foundation Associate Curator of the Art of the Indian Subcontinent at the Asian Art Museum, introduced artists Sparsh Ahuja and Sam Dalrymple of Project Dastaan. Padma Dorje Maitland noted “Project Dastaan is an exciting example of global citizens using digital media to explore a difficult subject with sensitivity and compassion. This program offers an accessible, interactive space for individuals and families of South Asian diasporas to reflect on the Partition’s intergenerational impact. For audiences beyond these diasporas, it’s a chance both to learn about the Partition and to consider the moments of ‘partition’ in their own histories.” This comment prompted Amanda Minami—member of CatchLight Board of Directors and philanthropist promoting innovation at the intersection of science and the arts—and I to discuss how our Japanese American relatives were impacted following the Pearl Harbor attack and forced by the U.S. government to leave their homes on the West Coast to incarceration camps. 

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During a moving presentation by Sparsh Ahuja and Sam Dalrymple, they shared that “Project Dastaan is a peacebuilding initiative which examines the human impact of global migration through the lens of the largest forced migration in recorded history, the 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan. Project Dastaan is a homage to the legacy of the millions of refugees in the subcontinent who had their lives changed overnight.” Photo above: Sparsh Ahuja and Sam Dalrymple projecting an image of Sparsh’s grandfather holding photos of himself and his wife; photo courtesy, Padma Dorje Maitland. They noted that “These stories are but a snapshot of the countless individual journeys taken by refugees during the crisis.”

To encourage educators to use Project Dastaan’s films in their classrooms, SPICE Curriculum Writers Irene Bryant, Stefanie Orrick, and Waka Takahashi Brown developed a guide for Project Dastaan. A free classroom-friendly teacher’s guide is available for download on the SPICE website and the CatchLight website. Activities in this guide include a pre-test, informational handout and assignment, and an exercise in conflict analysis. In addition, there is an extension activity that tasks students to research different modern-day conflicts, as well as an optional activity where students view one or two short films and engage in a post-viewing discussion.

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The SPICE staff highly encourages educators and students to visit the Project Dastaan Virtual Reality (VR) experience at the Asian Art Museum; photo above courtesy, Sree Sripathy. It is offered every Thursday night from 5:00 to 7:00pm, April 17–May 29, 2025.

SPICE is grateful to Amanda Minami, Elodie Mailliet Storm (CEO, CatchLight), and Erica Garber (Vice President of Development & Public Programs, CatchLight) for their unwavering support of SPICE’s collaboration with CatchLight and its Global Fellows.

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