On March 27 in Goa, a set of numbers will be asked to move beyond their usual confines. They will be spoken, staged, drawn into form, and held up to scrutiny. Art × Evidence, a new platform by Priya Agrawal of the Antarang Foundation, begins from a sense of distance between what is documented and what is lived, between what policy records and what young people carry with them.
India’s youth population is frequently described in terms of scale. Hundreds of millions, expanding enrolment, shifting employment rates. The language is familiar and often persuasive, yet it rarely includes the presence of young people in the rooms where these figures are interpreted. “Policy rooms or funding boardrooms rarely have youth voices,” Agrawal says. “There are on-ground realities and challenges that young people would like to voice… they carry anxieties like no generation before them.”
Her work over the past decade has focused on the stretch between school and employment, a period marked by decisions that are both urgent and under-supported. Many young people leave formal education early, often without access to guidance that might help them navigate pathways into stable work. Opportunities exist, and public and private investment in skilling continues to grow, yet the connection between education and employment remains uneven.
There is no shortage of data describing this landscape. It points to near-universal school enrolment, rising college attendance, and a gradual reduction in youth unemployment over time. At the same time, a large number of young people remain outside education, employment or training. These figures are widely cited, yet they tend to compress experience into something legible at a distance. “Data shows progress and gaps… but it does not tell the full story, or reveal the humans behind these statistics,” Agrawal notes.
Art × Evidence proposes a different way of working with that material. In its Goa edition, 45 young participants, working as emerging artists, are creating original artworks across poetry, theatre, visual art and design. Their responses are shaped by a decade of research into school-to-work transitions, including themes such as unemployment, financial independence and career decision-making. The intention is not to illustrate findings, but to interpret them, to question them, and at times to complicate them.
Within the workshops leading up to the showcase, these young artists have been developing works that draw directly from their own experiences. A statistic about dropout rates might become a spoken word piece that traces the pressures behind leaving school. A set of employment figures could take shape as a performance that moves through hesitation, expectation and compromise. Visual and textile works begin to map confidence, risk and the slow accumulation of choices. The process allows for nuance, for contradiction, and for forms of expression that sit outside structured questionnaires.
“Art allows young people to interpret research and statistics through their own voices and lived experiences, in ways that are conversational and non-threatening,” Agrawal says. The emphasis here is on access, on creating conditions in which young people can articulate what is often left unsaid in formal settings.
This approach builds on Antarang’s own research. A longitudinal study tracking more than 1,000 alumni over ten years suggests that structured career education can significantly influence outcomes. Participants in these programmes are entering the formal economy at rates that exceed national averages, with a higher proportion securing regular salaried roles and full-time employment. The data also points to stronger outcomes for young women, whose employment rates within the programme are notably higher than the national figure.
These results offer a compelling case for intervention, yet Agrawal remains attentive to what they cannot convey on their own. Evidence, in this context, gains depth when it is accompanied by lived accounts. “Artistic expression can reveal the aspirations young people hold, the fears and pressures they face, and the decisions they struggle with when choosing careers,” she says. “These expressions allow audiences to engage with the human side of the data.”
The showcase on 27 March is structured as a conversation rather than a display. Young artists, educators, policymakers and employers will share the same space, moving through the works and the questions they raise. The artworks become points of entry into discussions about how skill is understood, how it is recognised, and where existing systems fall short. Informal capabilities, emerging abilities and lived knowledge sit alongside formal credentials, asking to be acknowledged within the same frame.
Agrawal’s sense of what might follow is grounded in practical shifts. She speaks about integrating career education into school systems, about recognising the role of the arts within formal learning, and about building stronger connections between education and employment through internships that reflect local realities. There is also a focus on barriers that shape participation, particularly for young women navigating concerns around safety and mobility.
“Imagine career education becoming an integral part of Goa’s education system… imagine the creative arts becoming part of the school curriculum, with credits that can count toward college graduation,” she says. The repetition holds a sense of direction, suggesting what could be built rather than what already exists.
Art × Evidence is conceived as a pilot, with the potential to travel across different states and communities. The specifics will inevitably shift with each context, as the realities of education and employment vary across regions. The underlying structure, however, remains consistent, bringing together research, artistic interpretation and dialogue in a shared space.
What takes shape through this process is a shift in attention. The project places young people not as subjects of data, but as interpreters of it, engaging directly with the material that describes their lives. It opens up a way of working in which evidence and experience sit alongside each other, allowing for a fuller understanding of both.
On the evening itself, there will be moments that resist easy interpretation. The works are unlikely to offer neat resolutions, and the conversations they prompt may unsettle established assumptions. For those accustomed to engaging with youth employment through reports and summaries, the encounter will require a different kind of listening.
Art × Evidence does not move away from data. It brings it into closer proximity, asking that it be seen through the perspectives of those it represents, and that it be answered in return.
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