Roger began his talk on the note of his unexpected return to India after 32 years. India, observed Roger, is a very different place now than what it was on his first visit three decades ago. Examining this change, he took us through his archive of experiences, a testimony to the vast amount of knowledge gathered over the years.

Roger first came to India in 1986 to set up an exhibition of Finnish Architect, Reima Pietilä’s work at the School of Planning and Architecture (SPA). What started out as a 3-week long trip turned into a 4-year journey of learning and enlightenment. After setting up Reima’s exhibition, Roger’s hunt for work led him to meet James Beveridge, a Canadian film professor teaching at Jamia Millia Islamia University. There, Roger was offered a job as an instructor for various subjects. He taught History of Photography, Script writing and Photojournalism. He considers these the best two years of his life, as he had the opportunity to learn and teach. This explorative period also led him to question if design, architecture and filmmaking could be taught together seamlessly.

When Times of India approached him to run their studio, he unhesitatingly gathered 15 students from NID and redesigned their stationery, books and monthly supplements. Of course, there were flaws and imperfections. The weekend supplements dating between 1987 and 1988 had the most bizarre front covers, an opportunity to experiment back then.

The current dean of Sushant School of Architecture is Roger’s old student, who helped him set up the 1986 exhibit at SPA. Events came full circle when he contacted Roger about teaching his students, drawing him to India again. The long hiatus made Roger question whether his teaching programs for then are relevant even now. Tracing back to one document he shared with us, Roger confirmed his belief that earlier agendas could continue to have context. For instance, back then, the word 'paradigm' was used extensively. And now, the term has lost meaning because of its overuse in the design industry. However, its significance is maintained by the use of other replacement words, because of the human tendency to personalise professional terminology in creative ways. Connah left us with the thought, “Ambiguity has a vitality just as flux or flow has a vitality.”

Written by Agnisesh Sethlur

Juhi recalled her first job interview at Century Mills, a renowned textile company, when two days later she got a call saying they required some more time to decide as they had never recruited a woman at a managerial position before. Juhi realised then, that perspectives of age and gender are very different in the market. She did not want this to come in the way of her ambitions.

Disheartened with industry policies that turn a blind eye to worker exploitation, mostly focussing on deadlines and products, Juhi moved away to work with people to influence fair trade. She also became involved in academics. This gave her the platform to speak about how processes were not just about products, but more importantly about people and their environment. Incidents in her personal life reinforced her need to make change happen, beyond voicing opinions. She spoke about using spaces for dissent (act of publicly disagreeing with an official statement), to achieve a new result in design.

In 2011, Juhi moved to Goa with the dream of selling sarongs on the beach. Working as a waitress and living a happy life, she stepped into her first project with TARA trust, working with children to kindle their creativity and make them environmentally conscious. The origami paper crane from Sadako and the thousand paper cranes fable became a metaphor to talk about the recent Fukushima disaster in her workshops, sending a message across. This led to the idea of children between the ages of 7 and 14 paint t-shirts with the crane on them. Juhi’s contacts at Levis stepped in, but were a little apprehensive as their CSR budgets for the year were over. This is where Juhi used dissent as a tool and convinced them to break through their policy and do something out of the box. Over the course of 11 months, volunteers were gathered, paints were organized and finally the 1000 t-shirts were ready to be shipped. But how? Juhi pushed for an opportunity to speak at the Goa fest, where at the end of the presentation she said that she had the t-shirts but no way to ship them. One of the audience members volunteered to do it. This project ultimately gave birth to an exchange programme between India and Japan through Sanskiriti school, New Delhi.

After winding her stint at Goa, Juhi came to NID to take a 2-week open elective. Here she got to know about Khamir in Kutch, a craft institute where there was an opening. Khamir taught her a lot about the rural development space, foremost, living in the same space as them to find a leader amongst them. She started working with the team to generate systems for the local people to run it themselves, creating a collaborative not a corporation. Juhi left us with the thought that there will always be multiple obstacles but our job is to ‘just do it’, taking the story forward.

Written by Nishita Karun

In his presentation, Badrinarayanan talked about the Real vs the Symbolic aspect of design. He illustrated his point of view by taking examples from different disciplines of design - Product Design, Furniture Design, Fashion, and Urban Design.

Ikat is a dyeing technique used to pattern textiles that employ resist dyeing on the yarns prior to dyeing and weaving the fabric. This technique produces a unique result of an apparent "blurriness" to the design. In recent times, people have started printing this Ikat pattern directly on the fabric, which creates a simulation of the original design. Badri calls the latter, a symbolic design, adding a caveat that he isn't condemning one or appreciating another. He is merely expressing that both, and very different, sensibilities exist in the design world.

Then, he talked about the origin of denim jeans. Denim as a fabric was rugged and made to last longer; people would wear it longer and it would end up getting frayed. Later, the frayed look of denim became a trend and people started paying more for the jeans that looked worn out. Gradually, frayed jeans started symbolising youth. Jeans originated during the era of pocket watches before wrist watches were invented. For the same reason, jeans had tiny pockets on either side. Even though we have progressed beyond pocket watches, jeans still have tiny pockets. These pockets are purely symbolic, not serving their real purpose and often repurposed for keeping keys and tiny objects.

A similar transition from real to symbolic usage can be seen in the number of jacket buttons. The number of buttons on a jacket would depend on the sleeve length the wearer needed to fold while performing her work. People with lower rank would have more buttons vs the person on a higher rank. Nowadays, the numbers of buttons symbolise formal versus informal.

Badri recalled a parable of the ritual cat to explains this behaviour in design -

“When the spiritual teacher and his disciples began their evening meditation, the cat who lived in the monastery made so much noise that it distracted them. So the teacher ordered the cat to be tied up during the evening practice. Years later, when the teacher died, the cat continued to be tied up during the meditation session. And when the cat eventually died, another cat was brought to the monastery and tied up. Centuries later, learned descendants of the spiritual teacher wrote scholarly treatises about the religious significance of tying up a cat for meditation practice.”

Badri went on to talk about the real vs symbolic in terms of Product design. He gave examples of plastic handles that looked like bamboo, plastic baskets that resemble a bamboo one, moulded plastic furniture by Neel Kamal that is made to look like expensive teak furniture and so on. He observes the same behaviour in the field of architecture. Houses in Sikkim and Bhutan used to have a unique way of creating windows that served a real function before the advent of concrete-based houses. The new concrete houses adopted the ornamentation used in the windows of old houses. Stonewalls around the Buddha Jayanti park features the visual simulation of stone wall pattern that is drawn on the top of a plain wall surface.

In his conclusion, Badri split this behaviour as the two realms of design. The first realm is the WHY OF DESIGN, which deals with reason, technique, purpose, and rationale. The second realm is the WHY NOT OF DESIGN, which deals with emotion, memory, association, and culture. He talked about the third realm of design, which he called - WHAT IF? This realm lies between the method and the madness that the other two realms offer. His theory is that design movements have always been swinging between the two realms.

Written by Agnisesh Setlur

Samar who attended a film school, design school, art and photography school for varying periods of time began his talk, quipping how he is a drop-out from different places. He started his career as a commercial photographer for 8-10 years before he started working on experiential space. He wants his audiences to walk through these spaces and pick up whatever they interpret, because he doesn’t believe he is a lecturer or activist.

Samar who worked in the north east of India for a span of 15 years, spoke about a key project in which he was involved, doing capacity-building and skill development in a village of about 150 people in the midst of insurgency. The program involved reviving textiles, setting up an education program and helping to build a monastery, which added to the income of the village. The initiative also began an Ecotourism project, which is now owned and operated by the tribe.

Samar shared samples of work and documentations from projects in which he represents people who don’t really have a space of their own. He makes these relevant for the present context. A photo exhibition he created on the Bhopal Gas Tragedy was built in a shipping container and travelled far and wide. The importance was for the work be out where it matters and not become a white cube galleries syndrome.

The ardent photographer ended his session reiterating that it is all about collaboration. He called himself a connector who likes to bring people together in a fruitful manner. One such example was when he was working with children in Afghanistan, equipping them to create something based on education in conflict areas. The end manifestations were large installations, projection mapping or imagery of children with simple messages. He even

helped them create a postcard series so that non-resident Afghanis in New Delhi and around the world can be informed about the current conditions in Afghanistan, reconnecting with their way of life. Most of Samar’s collaborations are based on social communication as he believes it is the only kind which provides a trickle-down effect.

Written by Madhavi Menon

In India, most school text publications are produced on shoestring budgets, and very little resources are made available for aesthetically designing textbooks. Sridhar emphasised how design plays an important role in the presentation of a publication. When you design a product or building, it becomes a physical entity for people to experience. In many ways, the values of a building and its intent live on as a real manifestation. Architecture and art can be shared in several forms such as photography, illustration and video. Whereas, the essence of a book is ineffable- can be truly experienced only by reading it. The challenge that new authors and less popular (non-mainstream) books face, is to get a reader to become interested enough to delve deeper. And this is where the book jacket design becomes crucial.

Balan recollected one of his book publication projects - Building in the Garden - The Architecture of Joseph Allen Stein, where bright green pages were interspersed throughout the book. Readers found this refreshing. This unique feature in the design had its own limitations, as the high quality of paper used impacted the overall bulkiness of the book and added to the cost. Nevertheless, with the students of the School of Planning and Architecture queuing up outside the book seller’s office, the paperback edition priced at just Rs 250 was a success.

Balan further explained the need for good design in book publication. The decrease in real bookstores over the past decade has impacted the engagement of a book with its reader. Not every book is a best-seller, but in our current times when retail visibility plays an important role in accessibility and sales of books, finding new platforms to project the book is necessary. On this journey to gain recognition, design plays an essential and paramount role.

Written by Vinod Anthony Thomas

A chemical engineer and an IIM Ahmedabad alumnus, Sushil shared his life journey with the audience at the Forum. Shaped by his education and asking the question "Why am I doing what I'm doing?" he became motivated to live a life of purpose. To explain how he arrived at his current destination to become what he has today, he focused on three main phases of his experiences - building an organisation, social entrepreneurship and being completely immersed in doing work for civil society.

During his corporate work life, Sushil had the opportunity to meet a behavioural coach who helped him shape his personal vision. His vision statement became: "Being the cause for the inspired self and others, together, creates value, joy and fulfilment for those we serve."

Embracing this attitude, Ramola tells us how businesses have begun to widen their focus area. Initially, businesses would just be interested in economics but now, it's a combination of society, environment and economy - people, planet and profit. He also believes that true change can be achieved only when the government, market and civil society work together rather than being isolated.

He gave us an overview of a collaborative project as an example of the power and benefits of integration. 35 crore people in India are deficient in eyesight and this is more prevalent in the rural areas. B-ABLE collaborated with SCLOR in order to train boys and girls from the cities of Amroha and Hapur in Uttar Pradesh to become opticians in rural areas. The project was a great success because it helped people to see; at the same time, SCLOR gained a good name, which was good for its business future in India. Plus, they achieved the vision of B-ABLE. Ramola also noted that the future of business lies in CSR and that businesses must take a leap of faith, because, only then does one set the ball rolling.

Knowledge, attitude and skills become the head, heart and hands for any individual. Therefore, Ramola believes schools need to be focused on teaching topics that are more relevant to students these days. This is his primary goal at B-ABLE - empowering less-educated youth with necessary knowledge, attitude and skills.

Written by Agnisesh Sethlur