VIEW BOOK
2015. Design + Environment + Law Laboratory.
The DEL Laboratory is an initiative of Natural Justice & Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology. DEL Lab Logo Design: Sonalee Mandke Photo credits in this viewbook: Deepta Sateesh, Rutuja Patil, Mariya Madraswala, Malvika Tewari, TEDx NMIMS
“We walked into the arms of the forest” was supported by Madras Crocodile Bank Trust.
“Splice” was partially funded by the Department of Landscape Architecture, PennDesign.
CONTENTS
Who We Are
05
How We Work
07
Research & Collaboration
09
The Heroes Project
11
“We walked into the Arms of the Forest” 15 Splice - The Iconic Joint
19
Events
23
Ecosystem
36
WHO WE ARE Vision The Design+Environment+Law Laboratory (DEL Laboratory) is set up to challenge existing legal, environmental, social, economic and cultural frameworks through interdisciplinary thinking and creativity. The DEL Laboratory is an intiative of Srishti and Natural Justice. We believe that the artist/ designer brings an interdisciplinary approach to complexities and contradictions on the ground in contentious landscapes, through synthesis and imagination, to investigate, image and intervene. The studio-lab carries out collaborative research projects, to explore the intersections between design and the humanities, through active engagement in the environment; to bring design approach to pedagogy, policy and practice; and, to strengthen socio-ecological relationships, making way for synchronous engagement in our enironment.
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HOW WE WORK Values that guide our approach, methodology and pedagogy
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Interdisciplinary thinking
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Openness & reflection
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Embracing complexity
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Empathy & mindfulness
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Experience-based learning
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Group learning
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Collaborative decision-making
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RESEARCH & COLLABORATION We believe that research, based on theory, practice and reflection, form the foundation of how design thinking and methodology can contribute to and impact broader issues of policy-making, regional and spatial planning, conflict resolution, local practices, uncovering new lenses and pathways for humanity to navigate through our changing world and environments. The Western Ghats, a contentious landscape that has drawn much attention over the past few years, is of research interest as the conflicts on the ground today stem from the current image and imagination of the Ghats.
The DEL Laboratory has entered into research work with BHSI (Vivek Dhareshwar) and faculty at Department of Landscape Architecture at UPenn (Anuradha Mathur and Dilip da Cunha), to begin a revisualization and reimagining of the Ghats, through studio projects as well as doctoral work, symposia and workshops. At the faculty research level, the team is now beginning to explore the nature of design in the humanities, and humanities in design, through workshops, seminars and discussions, engaging a diverse group of scholars, artists, designers, and educators across India.
Partners/Collaborators: - Bangalore Human Sciences Initiative (BHSI) - School of Design, University of Pennsylvania - Madras Crocodile Bank Trust - Natural Justice, Global
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Still from the comic book ‘Return To The Kalahari’
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THE HEROES PROJECT The Heroes Project, inspired by Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey, is an on-going collaboration between Natural Justice in South Africa and the DEL Laboratory, since 2013. It is an initiative in the move towards social reform in South Africa, to enable the KhoiSan youth make informed choices. The site for transformation is the Cape Flats, just outside Cape Town. Here, where most KhoiSan reside today in the midst of gangsterism, drug abuse and poverty, are also home to heroes from the community who have made significant contributions for positive change.
A graphic narrative to reintroduce myths and community heroes was identified as the form that the youth can relate to. This year, the lab team completed the origin story of the graphic novel series, titled “Hoerikwaggo Chronicles – Return to the Kalahari.” The comic book was officially launched in Cape Town, at the District Six Museum, with the blessings of the National KhoiSan Council, on September 26th, 2014. The team is now planning publishing and distribution of the book to initiate possible change.
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Illustrator, Abhishek at book launch event at The Entertainment Store, Bangalore
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“WE WALKED INTO THE ARMS OF THE FOREST� Biodiversity is a broad area that impacts the political, social, economic and cultural life. This impact and importance is often lost through a myriad of inaccessible studies, policy documents, and technical language that do not necessarily capture the complexity that surrounds biodiversity. These limitations stem from those of our current approaches and conventional forms/languages of documentation and communication. In collaboration with the Agumbe Rainforest Research Station (ARRS), the intent is to drive change and imagine new ways of documentation and creative communication of biodiversity, working with field biologists, in Agumbe, Karnataka, Western Ghats.
At ARRS, biologists, ecologists and other researchers study the behavior of specific species in their microhabitats. However, the forms in which these studies are documented are limited to primarily text-based records from a speciesspecific perspective. Although these studies enable the researcher to observe and gain knowledge about their subjects, they are unable to communicate their findings to another audience, of the nature of the changing site conditions and scales of operations. This project sought to reimage biological diversity of the Western Ghats beyond the species approach - to see habitats, micro-ecosystems, landscapes, and patterns of behavior in these places across time, scales, practices and relationships.
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A Still from ‘The Living Plains’
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The 2 ideas that were created and developed for this project were: (i) a new kind of ‘map’ or ‘calendar’ that unravels the Shola grasslands in Agumbe hoping to remove the notions that grasslands are wastelands; and (ii) a storybook of the
quaint bird that visits the grasslands every summer – the Yellow-Wattled Lapwing, and its relationship with the grasslands.
A still from the illustrated story book ‘ Summer Settlers’
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MATERIAL SPLICE 5PM
9PM
6PM
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6
10PM
SPLICE- THE ICONIC JOINT To most people the Western Ghats is a range of hills on the west coast of India covered with monsoon forests, a repository of minerals, a UNESCO world heritage site and a biodiversity hotspot. In this studio, however, the Western Ghats will be a splice: a joint of two things that does not call attention to itself so much as to the new ‘singularity’ that it creates. It is common to hear the word splice used to describe the taping of two celluloid strips in making a film, the tying of two ropes in extending a length, the joining of two pieces of wood in crafting an artifact, the juxtaposing of two images in creating a montage, the connecting of two pieces of music to make a performance. To say the Western Ghats is a splice is to
see: a coast that calls attention to a land-sea gradient; an escarpment that unites the ground beneath the Arabian Sea and the Deccan Plateau along a N-S shear that reveals layers of basalt toward the north and a surface of laterite to the south; a threshold that allows the SW monsoon to come through, a moisture-laden wind that drops large amounts of rain between June and September on its way to the Himalayas; a ‘wild’ belt that generates networks of roadways, railways and airways to draw people from the urban centers on the Arabian Sea and the Deccan Plateau – people looking for ‘nature’, vacations, recreation, adventure and research; a ground that reveals veins, strata and ore of coveted
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TS
minerals; water and hydropower to cities on the Arabian Sea and the Deccan Plateau; a biodiversity hotspot that calls attention to an endangered planet. The singularity initiated by the Western Ghats in each of these cases has a beginning but no end, direction but no destination, trajectory but no enclosure. Design students engaged in the studio through: (i) Explorations – crafting a splice; (ii) Field work – traversing a splice (along with UPenn students); and, (iii) Intervention –
designing a splice. Each student designed an intervention in the Western Ghats that responds to conditions and initiates a transformation. This design involved programming, strategizing, and if necessary siting. Interventions include textiles, books and installation. The project ran simultaneously at the landscape architecture studio at UPenn, led by Anuradha Mathur and Dilip da Cunha.
cted were n attempt was herding. When rious plots that together on the
more closely. rities of how ere turned into a
ss. It was otential to were swinging and the pattern the frame, while a larger signal
NAVIGATING
NEGOTIATING
SIGNALLING
WANDERING
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CONC
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EVENTS Western Ghats Exhibition, Sunset Viewpoint, Agumbe, Karnataka 2- 4 May 2014 As a culmination of the first Western Ghats studio, students’ works were exhibited in the Ghats. The intention to have a public exhibition is simple - to offer new ways of seeing and understanding the Western Ghats as we travel through them, including Agumbe. This opens up the possibilities to influence the way in which we engage with the region as well as sensitize us to it. A total of about 150 visitors who engaged with the exhibition, who speak English, Kannada, Tulu, Konkani, Malayalam, from Bangalore, Shimoga, Davengere, Teerthahalli, Kolar, Manipal,
Sri Lanka, Mangalore, USA, Chennai Kerala, Agumbe, Udupi, Mangalore - all driving through or visiting Agumbe, including many local people from Agumbe. Visitors were excited to see an in-situ exhibit – of the Ghats in the Ghats. Although the exhibits required some amount of initial conversations to orient the visitor, we believe the works of this unique design approach communicated new ways of seeing the region in a more accessible manner than presentations through singular disciplines that require prior basic knowledge, or inclination. The curiosity and enthusiasm with which the design explorations were received reaffirmed the possibility to initiate dialogue and collaborations where public opinion and design thinking can interact.
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EVENTS BLINC Workshop 27- 28 June 2014 BLINC, with a vision to bring ‘Balance in the Landscape though Imagination, Negotiation and Collaboration’, brought NGOs, academics, activists, designers and individuals or groups interested in the overarching theme of ‘asserting community rights over the environment’. The two-day workshop-exhibition was organized by Natural Justice and designed and facilitated by the DEL Laboratory. The workshop was held at Cobalt (Church Street) and Rangasthala (MG Road), and the exhibition was at the Rangoli Art Center (MG Road).
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EVENTS Comic Fest, World Design Capital 2014
Cumulus Conference Johannesburg
20 September 2014
24 September 2014
The Heroes Project team had the wonderful opportunity of exhibiting the comic book, the Hoerikwaggo Chronicles – Return to the Kalahari, at the WDC2014 event at the Homecoming Center. Many youth from the neighborhoods in Cape Town were deeply interested
The DEL Laboratory team was proud to present a paper based on the Heroes Project at the Cumulus Conference Johannesburg, themed “Design for the other 90%,” on South Africa’s Heritage Day. The paper, titled “Reviving Communities through Storytelling and Creative Action” was co-written by Deepta Sateesh, Dr. Kabir Bavikatte, Lesle Jansen and Abhishek Choudhury.
in reading the comic, many of whom were of KhoiSan decent. That afternoon, Kabir Bavikatte, Lesle Jansen, Deepta Sateesh and Abhishek Choudhury, along with Delme Cupido from OSISA, participated in a panel discussion, “The KhoiSan Experience” around the issues in the Cape Flats, and the approach and processes in creating the comic book. Prior to the talk, the team was interviewed by a local TV crew.
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EVENTS Comic Book Launch, District Six Museum -
Entertainment Store, Bangalore
26 September 2014
7 November 2014
The official launch of the comic book was a formal event held at the District Sis Museum, a historically significant site of Cape Town as it transformed during and after apartheid. The event began with the leader of the National KhoiSan Council, Cecil le Fleur, sharing his acceptance and gratitude to the role that art and design can play in uplifting communities that have been culturally traumatized. The event was attended by other members of the NKC, noted South African poet and author Shabbir Banoobhai, South African lawyer for indigenous people Roger Chennells, art and design faculty from Cape Peninsula University of Technology, lawyers and friends of Natural Justice.
The DEL Laboratory shared the completion of the comic book back in Bangalore, at the Entertainment Store, attended by many comic book enthusiasts, students of Srishti and design practitioners.
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RAINFOREST
1. RAINFOREST, AGUMBE
2. TOWN OF UDUPI
GHAT CROSSINGS: ESCARPMENT TO SEA 3. MALPE, FISHING VILLAGE & PORT
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ARABIAN SEA
EVENTS Srishti Collective / Award December 2014 The Srishti Collective 2014 was a curated exhibition of diploma student projects at the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, that included “Summer Settlers” and “The Living Plains” projects with ARRS. The 3-day celebration had visitors from schools and colleges, Bangalore City and the Yelahanka neighborhood, who attended the exhibition. Artist/designer Mariya Madraswala received a Certificate of Commendation in Visual Communication for her extraordinary work creating the storybook. Both pieces of work are now at ARRS for public viewing.
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EVENTS TEDx Talk
Humanities/Design Workshop
28 Febuary 2015
27 March 2015
Deepta Sateesh delivered a TEDxt Talk under the theme of Reshaping Thought, titled “Design Imagination – from Innovation to Invention” that covered the journey of the lab through reflecting on our projects and continually rethinking the role of design. The TEDx Talk was organized by NMIMS Bangalore.
The Bangalore Human Sciences Initiative and the DEL Laboratory held a workshop called “Designs of the Thinkable/Livable and the Grounds of the Humanities.” Presenters included Dilip da Cunha (UPenn/ Srishti), Vivek Dhareshwar (Srishti), D. Venkat Rao (FEFLU, Hyderabad) and Pithamber Polsani (Srishti).
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EVENTS Penn Review, USA 10 May 2015
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OUR CURRENT ECOSYSTEM Team
Students
Deepta Sateesh Director & Co-Founder
Malvika Tewari Designer
Mariya Madraswala Rutuja Patil Adwait Pawar Sanika Sahasrabuddhe Sreemoyee Roy Choudhury Priyanka Mehta Namrata Singh Henal Jain
Abhishek Choudhury Artist/Designer
Partners & Collaborators
Mariya Madraswala Design/Research Assistant
Agumbe Rainforest Research Station Madras Crocodile Bank Trust
Arpitha Kodiveri Co-Founder
Anuradha Mathur / Dilip da Cunha PennDesign, University of Pennsylvania
Advisors John C. Keene University of Pennsylvania Geetha Narayanan Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology Kabir Bavikatte The Christensen Fund
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Vivek Dhareshwar Bangalore Human Sciences Initiative, Srishti Lesle Jansen Natural Justice, South Africa Kabir Bavikatte UNU / Natural Justice
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Facebook: www.facebook.com/LEDLaboratory Email: ledlab@srishti.ac.in Tel: +91.80.4044.7000 Address: P.O. Box No. 6430, Yelahanka New Town, Bangalore - 560 106