Kinnera Mulam

“Through my art, I try to advocate for understanding the people around you and just supporting them. I want to be remembered as someone who tried to push for that and expressed it through my art,” Sania Gupta (12) said.

Vibrant animated characters and superheroes move across the screen, their actions accentuated by flashes of color and comic book-inspired artistic details. Mesmerized by the animation techniques used, Sania Gupta (12) stares up at the movie theater screen playing “Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse.” She remembers this experience as the moment at which she became interested in the world of animation.

“I like animation because I think it’s a powerful way to spread a message and make an impact to a younger demographic in a more creative and engaging way,” Sania said. “I want people to really connect with what I’m creating.” 

Sania first entered the world of animation after seeing the movie six years ago. She admired how the animation choices in the movie effectively contributed to the meaning of the story and created an enjoyable experience for the audience. As an artist since the age of four with a passion for computer science, Sania finds the field of animation ideal for combining her two interests.

“I wanted to find a way to create a more technology-based art,” Sania said. “So I got into 3D modeling, and I’ve just built on top of that and got into different steps of the animation pipeline and the game development process.”

Close friend Eira Saraff (12) has known Sania since meeting her at a Harker summer camp in middle school. Throughout Sania’s animation journey, Eira has admired her determination to effectively make an impact on her audience through her work.

“It’s amazing to see her work on her animation projects with such a high level of attention to detail,” Eira said. “You can really see how much she cares about every little thing in the project, and they always end up looking amazing.”

Sania began animating her own art in middle school on a smaller scale and began creating more advanced animation projects in high school. As a way to make an impact with her art, Sania worked on animation projects with Narika, an organization that aims to help and empower domestic abuse survivors. She created three animated “shorts” for the organization’s teen abuse prevention program. 

“I think art has made me more aware of issues in the world and has made me a more understanding person,” Sania said. “Through my own art, I’m trying to express a specific feeling and evoke some emotion from my viewers, but I’m also a viewer of other people’s art, and I get to understand their perspective as well.”

Close friend Shanaya Dhawan (12) admires how Sania portrays emotion in her art, a skill present in her animation projects which are structured to incite strong emotions. Shanaya has known Sania since first grade and seen Sania’s art from her drawings in elementary school to her full-scale animation projects in high school.

“I feel like whenever I look at her art, it’s always very good at conveying emotion,” Shanaya said. “It’s like whatever thoughts were going through her went right onto the page. It’s pretty moving.”

Although Sania has found that the technical side of animation and art has come relatively easy to her, her largest obstacle has been personalizing her art and adding a unique spin to projects. Sania believes that the impacts of artists’ work is heightened by their specific styles and themes.

“The biggest challenge or the most long-lasting challenge was trying to find my personal style,” Sania said. “You get inspiration from the things around you and from all the content you intake, but you also have to build some of your own creativity on top of that.”

As someone who has watched Sania’s art journey throughout the years, close friend Ishani Sood (12) hopes Sania can relax more in the animation process. In the future, she wants to see Sania not get caught up in the small mistakes or setbacks.

“Her work is always perfect,” Ishani said. “You can tell she really thinks everything through and even though that’s a great thing for the final product, I hope she can stress less about every little detail in the future because she’s an amazing artist and whatever she creates will succeed in its purpose.”

Seeing her own animated characters come to life on her screen has inspired Sania to keep participating in impactful projects, such as the abuse prevention project. She plans to take her talent with telling stories through art and animations into the future. 

“Through my art, I try to advocate for understanding the people around you and just supporting them,” Sania said. “I want to be remembered as someone who tried to push for that and expressed it through my art.”