Memento - Artefacts from the future

GRADUATION PROJECT INTERIOR DESIGN (BACHELOR OF DESIGN)

Vol. 1 of 1

Project Title:

MementoArtefacts from the future Name:

Smrity Kushwaha (2017030306) Project Mentor:

Ankita Trivedi

The Graduation Project Evaluation Jury recommends SMRITY KUSHWAHA from Interior Design Department for the Master’s/Bachelor’s Graduation Degree of Unitedworld Institute of Design, Karnavati University, Gandhinagar, India herewith, for the project titled Memento-Speculating Future Heritage. The project is complete in every aspect in accordance to the guidelines set by the institution.

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COPYRIGHT Š 2018

Student document publication, meant for private circulation only.

All rights reserved.

No part of this document will be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means including photocopying, xerography, photography and videography recording without written permission from the publisher, Smrity Kushwaha and Unitedworld Institute of Design. All Illustrations and photographs in this document are Copyright Š 2020 by respective people and organizations.

Written and designed by Smrity Kushwaha, under the guidance of Ankita Trivedi.

Printed digitally in Gandhinagar May, 2020.

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ORIGINALITY STATEMENT

COPYRIGHT STATEMENT

I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and it contains no full or substantial copy of previously published material, or it does not even contain substantial proportions of material which have been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma of any other educational institution, except where due acknowledgment is made in this degree project. Moreover I also declare that none of the concepts are borrowed or copied without due acknowledgment. I further declare that the intellectual content of this degree project is the product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance from others in the project’s design and conception or in style, presentation and linguistic expression is acknowledged.

This degree project (or part of it) was not and will not be submitted as assessed work in any other academic course.

I hereby grant the Unitedworld Institute of Design the right to archive and to make available my degree project/thesis/dissertation in whole or in part in the Institutes’s Knowledge Management Centre in all forms of media, now or hereafter known, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act. I have neither used any substantial portions of copyright material in any document nor have I obtained permission to use copyright material.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Foremost, I would like to pay my sincere gratitude to my mentor Ms. Ankita Trivedi for her continuous support , patience and immense knowledge. Without her, this project would not be possible.

I extend my thanks to the Department of Interior Design, Unitedworld Institute of Design. for giving me an opportunity to work on this project. I am thankful to all the faculties for their unwavering efforts in making our education better.

I thank my family and friends for their constant encouragement and support throughout this project.

This document was produced during the coronavirus pandemic that affected every facet of our lives. I am grateful for the courage and reselience of the frontline workers that have allowed us all with the capacity to function.

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SYNOPSIS

AIM The aim of this project is to foster dialogue on what Cultural Heritage means and our choices that shape it through speculation.

OBJECTIVE The objective is to create an interactive Installation that facilitates participation in four plausible scenarios of Ahmedabad in 2050.

The purpose of speculation here is to question what cultural heritage means and how our actions might shape it. The tangible heritage of migrant women is at the centre of this project to provide a multifaceted subject for discourse.

METHODOLOGY 1.

Research – Research on cultural heritage and issues surrounding heritage today. Study of factors affecting the heritage sector in the next 30 years.

2.

Worldbuilding – Creating four different scenarios through different timelines and parameters that shape heritage in each scenario.

3.

Interviews – Understanding stories and cultural heritage of a wide range of migrant women in Ahmedabad. Co creating the

artefacts by inserting characters into scenarios.

4.

Testing – Building prototypes for a small-scale installation for quick testing and feedback 5.

Redesign – Recording feedback and redesigning to optimize overall engagement RATIONALE 1.

Cultural heritage is defined as the legacy of physical artefacts and intangible attributes of a group or society that is inherited from past generations. All legacies are not heritage. This poses an ethical challenge for heritage professionals. What makes something count as cultural heritage? Which narratives to preserve? Taking societal conditions as a factor in scenario building makes the clear how the value of cultural heritage differs.

2.

As the effects of climate change grow severe, we will be faced with several challenges including large-scale human migration. This makes planetary health an important factor in scenario building and in the dialogue about Cultural Heritage.

SCOPE Four scenarios in 2050 Focusing on women of migrant communities Local participation Design for a small-scale interactive environment LIMITATION Limited data on heritage trends for the Indian Context Limited access to experts in the field

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ABOUT UID Unitedworld Institute of Design offers worldclass design education to create professionals, who can help meet India’s diverse design needs. UID aims at fostering strategic design linkages of innovation and entrepreneurship with various sectors of the industry. We encourage our students to pursue innovation led designs that have a radical and new meaning.

The learning model at UID is incubated to create and adapt to an appropriate environment of learning that facilitates our students with new experiences. We make sure our learning model engages the learner into new dimensions of work. This model provides an environment for interactive student engagement and enhances the system thinking ability. At UID, we believe that the experiential gained while developing and implementing this unique learning model is transferable to other disciplines as well.

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ABOUT SCHOOL OF INTERIOR DESIGN

The Interior Design programme empowers you to create harmonious interior spaces which reflect a balance of individual aspirations, aesthetics, sustainability and commercial viability, imbibing a spirit of inquiry, sensitivity and responsibility.

This course enables you to develop critical, innovative, technical, and managerial skills with respect to interior design of residential, hospitality, commercial, and retail environments and exhibition amidst shifting identities, sensibilities, values, and sociocultural systems.

This research-based, design-intensive major prepares you for careers in which you create comfortable, imaginative, and intelligently designed interiors. You work with faculty, peers, and outside professionals designing interior environments that reflect an understanding of sustainability, cultural differences, and human need for comfort and well-being.

It guides you through the study of materiality, 2D and 3D form and space. Studio sequences introduce interior and architectural issues of increasing complexity, with a focus on product design, lighting, colour, and textile. Designs are developed using hand drawings, physical models, collage, and digital renderings.

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ABOUT ME

My name is Smrity. On most days, I’d describe myself as driven and curious.

I chose to study Interior Design to understand space as a setting to our stories. Spaces being the still backdrops, that allow unfolding of our lives. I wanted to learn how these spaces could hold us better, be better accomodating, liveable and efficient.

In the course of this project, I’ve begun to think of spaces as stories themselves-of our values and culture-and as devices of storytelling.

With a keen interest in the latter, I aspire to create spaces that tell stories, and create stories that ask questions.

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ABOUT MY GUIDE Ankita Trivedi is a Spatial Designer and a Storyteller.

Having graduated with a Bachelors in Interior Design from CEPT University, Ahmedabad and an MA in Narrative Environments from Central Saint Martins, UAL, London; she has worked as an Interdisciplinary Researcher, Visual Storyteller and Speculative Designer in event design, branding, installation art, set design and film.

She is a Co-Founder of Living Midnight Narrative Outfit (LMNO), a narrative-based design and research think-tank which does projects involving participatory design and co-created research across multiple systems of audience engagement.

She has conducted several design theory workshops in various institutions and continues to teach part-time at UID alongside her professional practice.

Her work spans across multiple media and comprises of ‘entertaining’ experiences that open critical conversations about social, cultural and political issues; and how our imaginations can contribute to creating a more equitable world. She is interested in the production of unconventional narratives and exploring how spatial design practice can be transformed to facilitate the same.

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C O N T E N T S

1. INTRODUCTION

- WHAT IS SPECULATIVE DESIGN? - WHY SPECULATIVE DESIGN? - HOW TO APPROACH SPECULATION?

2. EXPLORATION - PRE-RESEARCH - COMMUNITY - IDENTITY - EMPATHY - BELONGING - COLLATION - CONVERGENCE - BREIF

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3. RESEARCH

- CASE STUDY - PORTABLE MUSEUM - CASE STUDY - DIORAMA - CASE STUDY - SPECULATIVE INTERACTIONS - INFERENCES

4. CONTEXT DEVELOPMENT - 2050 SCENARIOS - HUMANS INC. - EXTINCTION EXPRESS - GREENTOCRACY - POST-ANTHROPOCENE - ANALYSIS

5. -CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT DESIGN STRATEGY - INTERACTION DESIGN - VISUALS - PORTABLE MUSEUM - INTERVIEW PROCESS - DIORAMA

6. DESIGN DEVELOPMENT - VISUALS - PORTABLE MUSEUMS - DIORAMAS - INTERVIEW SHEET

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“To do criticism is to make harder those acts which are now too easy.�

-Michel Foucault

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INTRODUCTION

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W H A I S P E C U L AT I V D E S I G N

T S E ?

To understand speculative design, we must start with understanding design practice.

From a modernist perspective, design is a rational problem solving practice that aims to elevate the standards of living at different scales.

The role of design began as an embellishing factory and moved on to bigger challenges in the past few decades to social innovation. But that is only one side of the story.

Today design is filled with sub-categories that are often overalapping and confusing. It will be hard to encapsulate the mission of design and its overall approach with one definition.

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Design academics Stephanie and Bruce Tharp categorize designed-object activity in four primary fields.

As the name suggests, the purpose of discursive design is discourse. It is communication of ideas that are usually ideologically/socially/ psychologically charged.

1. Commercial design - design for the market 2. Responsible design - design to help those in need 3. Experimantal Design - design to explore 4. Discursive Design - design to express ideas

Speculative design is a discursive practice, based on critical thinking and dialogue, which questions the practice of design (and its modernist definition). However, the speculative design approach takes the critical practice one step further, towards imagination and visions of possible scenarios.

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W H Y S P E C U L AT I V E D E S I G N ?

“The purpose of speculative deisgn is not to predict the future, but to unsettle the present�.

The list above is a comparison between traditional design and critical design.

The term speculative design was coined by Anthony Dunne, professor and head of the design interactions programme at the Royal College of Art, and Fiona Raby, professor of industrial design at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. The two popularized the concept in their book, Speculative Everything: Design, Dreaming, and Social Dreaming.

The decision to take a speculative approach to this project was made to explore the discursive design strategies. Another motivation was to reflect on social challneges critically.

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I intend to learn to communicate ideas and understand speculation through this project.

H O W T O A P P R O A C H S P E C U L AT I O N ?

There are several way one can approach a speculative design project. Speculation is exploration in alternate realities and these unrealities can take place in the past- Counterfactual, be polarised- Utopia/Dystopia, they can be forward looking - What ifs or be exaggerated absurdities - Reductio ad Absurdium.

The approach taken for this project is a forward looking thought experiment. We speculate plausible scenarios in the year 2050.

The universe of possible worlds is constantly expanding and diversifying thanks to the incessant world-constructing activity of human minds and hands.

In the above diagram futures are categorized from possible to prabable. We operate in the plausible space and and raise questions about preferability.

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“The present changes the past. Looking back you do not find what you left behind�.

-Kiran Desai

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EXPLORATION

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P R E R E S E A R C H

COMMUNITY

IDENTITY

EMPATHY

BELONGING

5 Case Studies

9 Case Studies

14 Case Studies

5 Case Studies

Communication theory Types of empathy The rise of third of Identity What causes empathy culture kids Aspects of community Place identity “Ëmpathy deficit” Context collapse and Psychogeography phenomena digital nomadism

The preliminary research was done with the aim of understanding various subjects of interest and the speculative approach itself. It’s as much an exploration of the subjects as it is of the art of expression through various media.

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COMMUNITY

EMPATHY

What will be the structure of communities in 2050? What will a community center of the future look like?

With diversity comes othering. What if empathy is used to bring harmony between two groups?

IDENTITY

BELONGING

How will the idea of identity change in the future. How will placelessness play a role in defining identity?

More and more people are migrating today.

How will spaces change with an increasingly transient population?

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C O M M U N I T Y

What is a community and how is it defined?

Study of 5 projects on community in the future Understanding of different concepts of future communities and speculative design ideas.

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OCEANIX CITY

REGEN VILLAGES

Architecture firm BIG designed a conceptual model for a floating city of 10,000 people that could help populations threatened by extreme weather events and rising sea levels. It consists of buoyant islands clustered together in groups of six to form villages. These clusters would then be repeated in multiples of six to form a 12-hectare village for 1,650 residents, and then again to form an archipelago home to 10,000 citizens. Each mini-village will include a community framework for living, including water baths, markets, spiritual and cultural hubs, but BIG intends the Oceanix City to be adaptable to "any culture, any architecture".

An innovative new housing model dubbed ReGen Villages (short for regenerative) has been developed by Effekt in response to some of the world's most pressing environmental, social and economic issues.

The concept combines a variety of innovative technologies, such as energy positive homes, renewable energy, energy storage, door-step high-yield organic food production, vertical farming aquaponics/aeroponics, water management and waste-to-resource systems.

IN MY BACKYARD

DEGROWTH FUTURES

UNITED MICRO KINGDOMS

INMY by Dat Pangea Quatorze proposes a little eco house that can be assembled in a few days in the garden of someone who volunteers to host a refugee or immigrant family.

The tiny house has a kitchen, bathroom, wc, space for sleeping in the mezanine and a space for cohabitation.

To build up the house, ecological materials are used, that ensure great thermal comfort.

For the Oslo Architecture Triennale, Svendsen worked with groups in London and Oslo to come up with specific visions for how these cities might change by 2040. The actors then improvised characters to inhabit these fictional worlds and played out narratives of what their lives might be like.

For Oslo, the project takes as its premise an economic system based on degrowth which is a system that is anticapitalist, placing more priority on social and environmental wellbeing than continuous economic growth.

The United Micro Kingdoms (UmK) is a design fiction created by Dunne & Raby.

It is ivided into four super-shires inhabited by Digitarians, Bioliberals, Anarcho-evolutionists and Communo-nuclearists. Each county is an experimental zone, free to develop its own form of governance, economy and lifestyle. These include neoliberalism and digital technology, social democracy and biotechnology, anarchy and selfexperimentation and communism and nuclear energy. The UmK is a deregulated laboratory for competing social, ideological, technological and economic models.

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I D E N T I T Y

What is Identity? Which type of identity can the project focus on?

Study of 9 projects that deal with redefining/reinforcing identity .

Understanding of various factors that influence identity and how identity is changing..

Interest in the impact of cultural heritage and migration on identity.

NO ORDINARY LOVE

AMERICAN QUILT

This collection of ceramic products is an exhibition by the Italian designer Martin Gamper and his friends. It is a commentory on the question of individual identity being supressed by collective identities in utopian narratives of our time. No Ordinary Love knowingly raises the possibility of losing oneself in the collective — of subsuming one's identity in service of something greater — in the context of a high-end gallery, with its attendant economic engine: The market marks the limit of utopia.

With today's increasingly fractured social fabric, it is now brands that give us a feeling of collective identity, heritage, and continuity, gradually taking over the role that family and cultural heritage once held. Our identities are no longer defined by our ancestors and our traditions so much as bymultinational corporations who shape our personas through advertising and product placement.

The traditional American quilt serves as a living family document, surrounding us both physically and emotionally with the events and the people who came before us. This quilt forces us to question the cultural legacy we are passing along to the next generation.

MECHANISMS FOR TALKING

FOOD MAPS

THE GATE OF BRIGHT LIGHTS

The projects explores how heritage can lead to common ground with others, but in the increasingly hostile and tense climate, heritage and identity can twist, undermine and break relations between culturally diverse audiences.

In order to understand better how heritageidentity is expressed and how meaningful dialogue can be opened and sustained, CIID conducted people-centred design research.

They sought to better understand the differences and similarities among individuals, how they brought their heritage-identity to the tensions in their different answers, how they negotiated discussion and answered prompts without necessarily knowing their interviewer.

The work by designers Hargreaves and Levin is detailed maps, demarcating different states and provinces with different ingredients.

Food Maps strikes a conversation that everyone can participate in, whether we've visited the region and tasted its cuisines or not. These maps show how food has traveled the globe—transforming and becoming a part of the cultural identity of that place.

Space Popular has inserted a video installation in the gate of a historic palace in Seoul to show viewers the past and the future. The project is an invitation for passers-by to see how screens are portals to digital realms, and symbols of South Korea's place in the modern economy. The video sequence was created to draw parallels between how the palace gates once operated as the connection to the imperial family, and how today devices such as smartphones are portals to digital platforms that hold a similar level of significance in people's lives.

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FUTURE ERASURE Future Erasure is a futurescaping workshop created by CIID Research to immerse and engage museums in a difficult but pressing problem: to explore and design possible futures of heritage in a world where there is no universal canon to distinguish what is worth remembering and preserving from what is not.

They imagine a future where museums are so overwhelmed by the amount of items that should count as heritage; they can no longer keep their full collections and must delete 20% of it every year. To figure out what to delete and how this challenge would affect the museum experience of this future, on the day of the workshop, they

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GOATMAN invited a group of heritage experts from different museums to form the Deletion Bureau. The project demonstrates how futurescaping can be used as a research tool to reflect and spark discussion-- in this case about the current hopes and fears around the digital and a clear need for reshaping the societal value of museums and cultural institutions in the future.

GoatMan experiments with taking a holiday from being human. This project began with a desire to escape the stresses of being human by asking "Wouldn't it be nice to be an animal for just a bit?" I'm looking at views of what it means to be a human animal, a 'person,' from the perspective of a shaman and a neuroscientist, a psychologist and an anthropologist. In many ways the project is a way to ask various very specialized specialists some expansive questions. There's an ongoing societal conversation about the direction our culture should take, and this project is a contribution to that.

TRIGGER WARNING

XENOPHONE

‘Trigger Warning’ by Superflux is a fast paced journey through a city of memes. An urban hinterland of embodied ideas and warring ideologies. Switching between various firstperson perspectives, the story embodies the current culture clashes bubbling away beneath the surface of the city. The algorithmically mediated networks which amplify opinions, manipulate biases and shape beliefs have caused widespread civic unrest. People emerge from behind memes and screens to bear arms for their beliefs. Allegiances continue to fracture and fragment, until individual emotions and opinions reign supreme.

Xenophone is a speaker that is shaped like a mask. Using bone conduction technology, it creates a visceral experience that connects users with their ancestral stories in a tactile way. Upon recording a story with, for instance, their grandmother, the audio file lives within the mask and can be heard only when the user inhabits it. Manako explored the role that family history plays in forming one's cultural identity. Many cultures use masks as oratory devices, a history she wanted to reference through her design of Xenophone, a maskshaped speaker that recounts the story of the user's family history.

Unlike regular speakers, it conducts sound through a magnetic field, rather than through sound waves, and when pressed against any surface, including one's body, it can turn anything into a speaker. There are speakers and headphones on the market that already employ this technology, where users press devices against their skin to hear music, rather than inserting earbuds in their years.

Employing this technology, Xenophone transforms the experience of hearing one's family history into an intimate and tactile one.

The user has to wear the mask and inhabit it, in order to hear the story in her bones.

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E

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P

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T

H

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What are the different types of empathy?

MEETSPACE

BORDER CROSSINGS

Study of 5 projects that were designed for building empathy.

Meetspace is a device that offers a body-based mismatch-making service. Each Meetspace glove contains an embed­ded RFID tag, linked to the wearer's online data portrait. When worn in public, it scans one's immediate proximity for people who are significantly different from oneself then acts as a 'diversity sensor' and informs each wearer of the Other's presence; the glove inflates, alluding to the sensation of another hand during a handshake – the shared gesture that symbolizes the beginning of a personal relationship. This intends to act as an ice-breaker for spontaneous encounters with complete strangers, updating our code of conduct accordingly.

Border Crossings attempts to raise awareness and trigger debate on the current phenomenon of illegal migration, with particular focus on Sub-Saharan and Maghrebi migrants and the perilous journeys they face, chasing the elusive European dream.Marta Monge imagines travel tools an illegal migrant could design to cross EU borders.The result is a series of atypical travel tools, rendering the ingenuity and craftiness of an illegal traveller.

Looking at the map of the leading migrant routes, every object belongs to a different border, being it a natural or political Border Crossings is a fiction. But the way it mixes up with reality wants to raise a doubt.

+10 more projects on empathy to find focus areas.

Ideas on different issues that require empathy building initiatives.

Interest in migrant integration and interaction.

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LIVING ROOM

Empathy Museum

SAYING THINGS THAT CAN'T BE SAID

The project proposes a communal meeting space to help break down barriers between refugees and local communities in Holland.

The living room has been designed by Pim Van Der Mijl as a new domestic environment for asylum seekers and locals to socialise, with the aim of helping refugees integrate. Asylum seekers use their own skills and abilities to contribute self-made objects to the space, such as pieces of furniture or textiles, gradually turning it into something resembling a more welcoming living room.

Empathy Museum is a series of participatory art projects dedicated to helping us look at the world through other people's eyes. A Mile in My Shoes is a shoe shop where visitors are invited to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes – literally. Contained in a giant shoebox this interactive exhibit houses a diverse collection of over 200 shoes and audio stories that explore our shared humanity. With a focus on storytelling and dialogue, this travelling museum explores how empathy can not only transform our personal relationships, but also help tackle global challenges such as prejudice, conflict and inequality.

This project by Daniel Sher is an explores the materialization of abstract emotions. The result is collections of two connected objects that respond to stimulus to the other object.

The first collection includes a paper vane or pinwheel. As it is blown and rotates from one end, the electronics of a bubble machine are activated and begin to float throughout a room on the other end(other object) placed elsewhere to communicate.

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B E L O N G I N G

How do placeless people navigate belongingness?

Study of 5 projects that deal with redefining/reinforcing identity .

Understanding of various factors that influence identity and how identity is changing..

Interest in the impact of cultural heritage and migration on identity.

NO FIXED ADDRESS SYSTEM

SENSORIAL SHELTER

NFA (No Fixed Address) system by Chih Chiu proposes a new system with a static postcode tied to a dynamic, impermanent address, allowing modern nomads to participate in a functional society that respects alternative ways of living. Modern nomads can register as NFA user, being assigned an NFA postcode and receive an NFA device. Once the user find a place to settle down, place NFA device in a visible location then use fingerprint to activate the GPS. The location will be linked to the NFA postcode. Services requiring address can reach the user's current location via NFA postcode.

NFA system seeks to normalise and formalise the nomadic way of living.

The installation/performance by Maria Sergio started as an investigation into what brings a sense of belonging to people. Being a foreigner she started questioning how the spaces and objects interfere in that feeling.

Food carries a highly evocative power that enables one to feel ‘at home’ through the physical ritual of preparing it: its look, smell and taste. Food has the power to overcome an estranged space and transform it into a place of belonging. A mug of coffee can be stronger in making one feel at home than any built architecture.

HOMELESS FURNITURE

Digital Nomadism

IN/ON RESIDENCE

This project was lead by the designer's fascination for special, complex and specific forms or even archetypes of furniture with varying scales. This 2,5mx2,5mx2,5m intimate, nomadic living space is a reinterpretaion of the "living cube“. They designed the multifunctional cube, it consists of a desk, that can be changed to a kitchen, a rolling cupboard, that can be unfolded to an eating table for two persons, a bed, a big cupboard for clothes, a mirror‌ a drawer. A special chair is designed for the height of the kitchen /desk and by folding them you can climb on top of the cube to have a different view and read a book.

Lifestyle of the modern people represented as Digital Nomadism has caused a multiplicity of social problems due to identity confusion and mental instability behind the convenience.

Especially in the case of Milan, a variety of social problems have been exposed with a growing number of foreigners from various cultural spheres by reason of art, economy, education and immigrant. Thus, the author defines modern people and the foreigners in Milan, who are eager for mental stability, as Mental Nomad, proposes a multi-cultural space to pray for them.

In/On Residence served to to explore architectural and residential concepts of transit, displacement, temporariness and border conditions. On Residence dissected the architectures entangled in the contemporary reconfiguration of belonging, documenting the ways in which these architectures redefine residence, and the spatial, aesthetic, technical, and sociopolitical implications of this redefinition. In Residence speculated on architectural intervention strategies at a selection of sites that are understood to encapsulate the contemporary transformation of belonging.

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C O L L A T I O N PROJECT

CONTEXT

TONE

FUTURE ERASURE

Challenges faced by heritage experts and org.

Exploring what is heritage

QUESTIONING

BORDER CROSSING

Refugees from africa migrating to europe, lack of attention given to the crisis in media

PROVOCATIVE, EMPATHETIC

XENOPHONE

Lack of connection to cultural heritage in 3rd gen migrants

EMPATHATIC

TRIGGER WARNING

Digital warfares due to polarising effect of echo chambers, aggravated by filter bubbles

PROVOCATIVE SHOCKING EERIE

SAYING THINGS THAT CAN'T BE SAID

Exploring new ways of expression of abstract things

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IMAGE

INTRIGUING POSITIVE

CONVERGENCE

Different dimensions of the studied projects like context, outcome and concepts were analyzed to identify the desired area for speculation and possible form of the outcome.

A common denominator was found to be migrant community and cultural heritage.

The next step was to dig deeper in how the issues of cultural heritage.

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C U L T U R A L H E R I T A G E

Cultural heritage is harder to define because culture itself evades concrete definition. Culture is dynamic and highly contextual.

Unlike natural and personal heritage, it is pluralistic. By questioning what cultural heritage means, we ask which cultures will be remembered.

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M I G R A N T S

Climate change and Urbanization will result in large scale migrations.

In a society that is already polarized, it is important to ask how migration will affect the social fabric and how different cultures meet.

M W

I

G O

R A N T M E N

Women undeniably play an important role in transmission of cultural heritage. They are also the most neglected part of the larger migrant community.

This intersection creates an opportunity for a discourse on empowerment through cultural heritage.

W H A T I S H E R I T A G E ?

Simply put, heritage is inheritance from the past.

Cultural heritage is a part of socially transmitted objects, beliefs and practices.

After exploring different issues in the field, the challenge of defining heritage itself came into light.

How do we decide what counts as cultural heritage? and whose heritage counts?

As heritage continues to shape our views, how do we decide which narratives to preserve?

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B

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The aim is to question what heritage means today by speculating the future of cultural heritage.

W

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This project is set in 2050.

Thirty years from now comes in the ideal time zone for speculative world building as it is neither too far nor too close in the future.

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W

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Y

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“Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.�

George Orwell, 1984 It is important to question how we define heritage because it shapes the narrative of our world today.

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The installation will be set up in accessible areas for identified migrant groups in Ahmedabad.

The heritage city is also the context for the speculated future.

W

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The female migrant community in Ahmedabad will be participants in creating the artefacts.

H

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The outcome of this project will be a spatial interactive installation.

It will take form of a portable museum from the future with artefacts that communicate the speculated meaning of cultural heritage in 2050.

CONTEXT CONCEPT

SUBJECT

O B J E C T

AHMEDABAD 2050 Plausible futures CULTURAL HERITAGE What it means

MIGRANT COMMUNITY Focusing on women

ARTEFACTS

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“The present changes the past. Looking back you do not find what you left behind�.

-Kiran Desai

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RESEARCH

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P O R T A B L E M U S E U M S C S

A T

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E Y

BOÎTE-EN-VALISE Duchamp’s Boîte-en-valise, or box in a suitcase, is a portable miniature monograph including sixty-nine reproductions of the artist’s own work. Between 1935 and 1940, he created a deluxe edition of twenty boxes, each in a brown leather carrying case but with slight variations in design and content. A later edition consisting of six different series was created during the 1950s and 1960s; these eliminated the suitcase, used different colored fabrics for the cover, and altered the number of items inside.

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Each box unfolds to reveal pull-out standing frames displaying Nude Descending a Staircase and other works, diminutive Readymades hung in a vertical “gallery,” and loose prints mounted on paper. Duchamp included in each deluxe box one “original.” Duchamp’s boxes, along with his altered Mona Lisa, address museums’ ever-increasing traffic in reproductions and question the relative importance of the “original” work of art.

MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART - TBILISI The Museum of Contemporary Art in Tbilisi showcases some of Georgia’s best cutting edge artists. Its exhibits span the country’s modern history, building the narrative of this rapidly developing region. And all of it can be carried in a single suitcase.

“The curators present the suitcase’s contents, giving a detailed explanation of each artwork, and placing it in a global context”, it reads, the ticket price for the portable museum is said to be a little over one Euro, which is then used for adding more exponents to the collection.

The brainchild of three Georgian artists — Mariam Natroshvili, Natalia Vatsade and Detu Jincharadze — the portable gallery is designed to bring contemporary art into people’s homes.

The suitcase carries photos and videos on 30 pieces of contemporary Georgian art, presented by the museum’s curators. Georgia has no permanent national museum for contemporary art, and most of the pieces are in the hands of private collectors.

Mariam Natroshvili says “the museum is an attempt to re-think and re-evaluate the important works of Georgian contemporary art. The Project also challenges the traditional form of a museum, and delivers contemporary art to the public in an experimental way. It’s a kind of memory storage, a time machine that can offer a journey to the past and predict future prospects. The museum can be delivered at any time and place.”

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PORTABLE CITIES In her work ‘Portable City’, artist Yin Xiuzhen collects clothes worn by people in different cities and uses them to create miniature models of them inside a suitcase. To provide the viewer with the whole experience, the suitcase also plays a tape with the local soundscape.

The work in no way makes a pretense of being a miniature reproduction of the cityscape.

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In spite of the souvenir potential and the dainty materials, this artwork series may also reveal certain implications that are critical (of consumerism). Painstakingly handmade from old items of clothing, these sculptures contrast directly with industrial mass-produced textiles, whose production in China often involves unacceptable working conditions.

UNPACKED: REFUGEE BAGGAGE Created by Syrian artist Mohamad Hafez in collaboration with student and former Iraqi refugee Ahmed Badr. The goal of the project, Hafez says, is to further humanize refugees, immigrants, and Muslims, and inspire people across the political spectrum to relate to them.

Hafez chose suitcases as a medium because he’s been interested in the word “baggage” for a long time — everything emotional and physical that the word entails.

He wanted to use a medium that a lot of people could relate to, and show that the journey is never the whole story.

A big part of the UNPACKED: Refugee Baggage project is its audio component. When on display, each suitcase has a headset so viewers can hear refugees tell their own stories depicted in the dioramas.

Each suitcase represents a story from a refugee family that has resettled in the U.S. after leaving Afghanistan, the Congo, Syria, Iraq, and Sudan. He describes this as yesterday’s immigrants helping to tell the stories of today’s immigrants. ”My ultimate goal is to have my artwork try — at least try — to bring people together again,” Hafez says.

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S P E C U L AT I V E INTERACTIONS C S

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AMERICAN FUTURES(2016) American Futures is a special one-off experiential futures course at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago designed by Stuart Candy to use the unfolding 2016 U.S. presidential contest as fuel for our collective imagination.

For many progressives in the United States, Canada conjures a wistful ideal of multicultural harmony and civility. Indeed, the fact that the Canadian immigration website crashed on election night was interpreted by many as a

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sign of widespread alarm at the prospect of a Trump administration, an impending reality to which people around the world were adjusting.

MFA student Cat Bluemke pitched this particular intervention, drawing on her Canadian background to imagine a near-future organisation called CanAssist.Us, and following her lead, the whole class worked together to bring it to life in the streets of Chicago.

She explains, “CanAssist.Us is a [hypothetical] private company that helps clients navigate the Canadian immigration system for Americans under President Trump. The project channels the anxieties driving this escapism into critical review of the individual’s responsibility within their community to challenge complacency in this reality”.

“CanAssist.Us uses experiential futures to demonstrate what realities could still be averted, and to encourage the will of the individual to unite under this goal. The situation of our American reality makes the future a particularly urgent tool to engage with”.

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I N F E R E N C E S

PORTABLE MUSEUMS

DIORAMA

INTERACTION DESIGN

With the case studies on portable museums, an understanding of their functioning and the relation to the context was established. A portable museum can represents ideas about heritage accessibiltiy, how heritage is consumed and how it is managed.

For this project, a portable museum is what contains heritage of different people. The form a portable museum takes can represent the state of Heritage in the scenario.

A diorama is defined as a model representing a scene with three-dimensional figures, either in miniature or as a large-scale museum exhibit. But beyond being replicas, dioramas can be a tool for storytelling as shown in the case studies.

In this project dioramas are act as meta-artefacts, they are artefacts that represent the idea of artefacts for different people.

When it comes to speculative design, discourse is key. From the case study, we learn how the interaction can take place in a seamless manner. It directly presents an idea as an established fact rather than a project.

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This project will be presented as an open exhibition of portable museums that involves participation in making of dioramas.

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“Who controls the past controls the future.

Who controls the present controls the past.�

- George Orwell

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WORLDBUILDING

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W O R L D B U I L D I N G

Worldbuilding is the process of constructing a complete and consistent fictional world that serves as a context for a story. It is “the creation of imaginary worlds with coherent geographic, social, cultural, and other features” (von Stackelberg & McDowell, 2015, p.32).

Worldbuilding has been used in a variety of fields ranging from science-fiction to game design. In speculative design practice, it is used for scenario generation.

Scenarios are a set of alternate futures that “describe a world to come, making a systematic set of assumptions about the drivers shaping that world” (Institute for the Future, 2017).

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There are 6 factors that shape the arc of the world SOCIAL, TECHNOLOGICAL, ECONOMIC, ENVIRONMENTAL, POLITICAL AND CULTURAL. To define heritage in the scenarios, parameters are set based on the stakeholders and drivers of change in the heritage sector. These parameters give shape to what heritage means in different scenarios.

2 0 5 0 S C E N A R I O S

Worldbuilding is the process of constructing 2050 Scenarios – Four plausible futures is a foresight project to gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of the implications, opportunities and threats to, and on, our businesses and markets.

It is intended to develop a vocabulary and framework to help us envision different futures and provide a platform to discuss the implications of the implied trajectories.

The 2050 scenarios framework is used to develop the four futures of Ahmedabad along different trajectories defined by trends of Planetary health and Societal conditions..

To do so, Indicators of heritage are defined and parameters of the world are set.

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For most people, life is as good as it’s ever been. The planet, on the other hand, is not as healthy. In many ways, this period reflects a business-as-usual trajectory from 2020: the condition of humanity has continued to improve at the expense of the environment. Climate considerations have come third, subordinate to economic development and societal wellbeing. When coordinated action continued to falter on a global level, the super-economies settled for ambitious adaptation programmes.

Future-proofing their own critical infrastructure while protecting their populations is a priority.

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A sense of urgency for climate action is palpable, but “Why should we go first?” or “Not in My Backyard” dominates the dialogue. Thus, most national governments hesitate or delay the needed large-scale actions. The Netherlands, most of Scandinavia and Germany are a few places that have started trying to mitigate their impacts on the planet by introducing carbon-free transport weeks completewith penalties and fees for those who do not comply.

Norway, Finland, Singapore, Costa Rica, and California have implemented Personal Carbon Limits.

Many cities are taking an active role in developing urban agriculture in an attempt to secure their populations’ food supplies and reduce reliance on surrounding areas. The Urban Farmers Union, founded in 2035, attempted to bring biodynamic farming into the main stream. Despite these localised efforts, the exploitation of planetary resources continues almost unabated.

SOCIAL MIGRATION RATE- Increased (climigration) FAMILY SIZE- Decreased LITERACY RATES- Improved LIVING WAGES – Accessible

TECHNOLOGICAL HERITAGE PRESERVATION- Digitization of cultural heritage is the adopted strategy as climate conditions disrupt built and tangible heritage SUSTAINABILITY INNOVATION- Improvements in weather forecast and emergency calls,

ECONOMICAL ECONOMY- Mixed economy – Social welfare centric URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE- failure to maintain critical infrastructure for climate shocks and stresses has left ailing infrastructure INEQUALITY- Reduced

GENDER EQUALITY- Improved HEALTH- Improved access, threats to physical health

ENVIRONMENTAL

POLITICAL

CULTURAL

CLIMATE CONDITIONS- Environmental degradation

GOVERNMENT TYPE- Democratic government

SOCIAL COHESION- The sharing economy has improved relations between societies

WASTE MANAGEMENT-

ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES- Regulatory MIGRATION POLICIES- open borders are expanded and individuals have increasing freedom to move around the world PUBLIC ENGAEMENT- High

VALUE FOR HERITAGE- Heritage is valued for the social and economic empowerment INCLUSIVITY- Exploration of non canonical cultural heritage is thriving SOCIAL TIERS- Social division has decreased

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CLIMATE ACTION

GENDER EQUALITY

Decarbonisation actions are limited, and ine fective, and global temperature has exceeded the 2°C target.

Education levels increase globally due to increased spending. 90% of adults’ complete secondary education and 25% pursue tertiary

Government spending on housing and city services is high, yet extreme weather events impact service provision.

HERITAGE MANAGEMENT

HERITAGE ACCESSIBILTY

WEALTH GAP

The implementation of preservation policies have had little effect as the climate conditions continue to disrupt all activities.

Heritage awareness has increased, with more on more of of official heritage being threatened. Access to tangible heritage has become more and more difficult.

The Wealth gap has decreased due to the the implementation of a global universal basic income.

HERITAGE TOURISM

HERITAGE INCLUSIVITY

Heritage tourism has decreased to risks of increasing unexpected conditions.

TECHNOLOGICAL INFRASTRUCTURE FOR CONSERVATION

Inclusivity has improved as more and more organisations open up to diversity.

Though inclusivity itself is superficial as philanthropy becomes popular, the most marginalised still lack agency.

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SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIES

The technological advancements made are towards digitization.

CLIMATE ACTION

Declines

Improves

GENDER EQUALITY

SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIES HERITAGE MANAGEMENT

HERITAGE ACCESSIBILITY

WEALTH GAP

HERITAGE TOURISM

HERITAGE INCLUSIVITY

TECHNOLOGICAL INFRASTRUCTURE FOR PRESERVATION

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E X T I N C T I O N E X P R E S S

Climate change and the inexorable consumption of Earth’s resources has resulted in fundamental destabilization of natural systems.

Resource, energy, water and food shortages are pervasive across the world. Environmental consciousness is largely non-existent.

The established world order has shifted, and the global centre of power has moved to the East. China has a strong economic presence and position globally and dominates the research and manufacturing of technologies.

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To meet the global population’s growing demands, resource colonies on the moon and in the deep sea have been established.

The Amazon rainforest, one of the world’s largest carbon sinks, is almost entirely cleared.

The Brazilian government sold large portions of the forest to online retailers in the 2030s to provide resources for their ever-increasing shipping needs; packaging is in high demand. Space and deep-sea mining are booming as demand for natural resources have surpassed the previous all-time high.

The incentive to reach and operate in these inaccessible and inhospitable locations is greater than ever; access means the ability to harvest rare materials and resources that are increasingly scarce on Earth. While the USA, China, Russia and Europe conduct the vast majority of extractions, Japan, India, Indonesia, Iran, Brazil and others are expanding their presence, leading to an increase in resource conflicts.

SOCIAL MIGRATION RATE- Increased(Climigration) FAMILY SIZE- Decreased LITERACY RATES- Slightly Increased- unequal access to education

TECHNOLOGICAL HERITAGE PRESERVATION- Heritage preservation efforts are driven by short term capitalistic goals and unsustainable SUSTAINABILITY INNOVATION- Adaptive technology for resilience and protection from weather conditions

ECONOMICAL ECONOMY- Free market economy URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE- Depleting structures due to extreme weather, Spatial division between have and have-nots NEQUALITY- High

LIVING WAGES – Inaccessible GENDER EQUALITY- Declining HEALTH- Declining(Physical and mental health)

ENVIRONMENTAL CLIMATE CONDITIONS- Extreme weather, frequent floods and droughts WASTE MANAGEMENT- Widely unchecked

POLITICAL GOVERNMENT- Corrupt Government ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES- Made for corporate benefits

CULTURAL SOCIAL COHESION- Conflicted societies, lack of trust has decreased social self reliance VALUE FOR HERITAGE- Heritage is highly commodified

MIGRATION POLICIES- Isolation of migrants INCLUSIVITY- Low PUBLIC ENGAEMENT- Low SOCIAL TIERS- Social division has drastically increased

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CLIMATE ACTION

GENDER EQUALITY

Greater than predicted sea level rise. Global mean temperature has far exceeded the 2°C target.

Lack of access to contraception and education keeps fertility rates high in the least developed countries.

Many coastal cities face frequent and extensive flooding, displacing millions

HERITAGE MANAGEMENT

HERITAGE ACCESSIBILTY

WEALTH GAP

Management of heritage is managed by the powerful few and public participation is low.

Heritage accessibility is decreased as the basic needs become increasingly inaccessible.

Wealth gap has increased, making a large part of the population exposed to harsh conditions.

HERITAGE TOURISM

HERITAGE INCLUSIVITY

Heritage tourism has decreased due to the climate and social conditions. Overall travel for leisure has decreased.

TECHNOLOGICAL INFRASTRUCTURE FOR CONSERVATION

Education levels increase globally due to increased spending. 90% of adults’ complete secondary education and 25% pursue tertiary

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SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIES

Technological advances for preservation have been concentrated in the official sector to serve corporate benefits.

CLIMATE ACTION

Declines

Improves

GENDER EQUALITY

SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIES HERITAGE MANAGEMENT

HERITAGE ACCESSIBILITY

WEALTH GAP

HERITAGE TOURISM

HERITAGE INCLUSIVITY

TECHNOLOGICAL INFRASTRUCTURE FOR PRESERVATION

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GREENTOCRACY

Climate action and biodiversity recuperation are the top-line of every agenda. The results of the galvanized global efforts have been unprecedented for the environment, but not without significant sacrifice from people who are realizing the trade-offs did not quite work out for them. Humanity now lives in self-imposed servitude to the environment under the mantra of ‘happy planet, happy people.’

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For most of the last two decades, the Earth and its health have enjoyed the highest priority in the public consciousness. The scale and speed of environmental degradation of the first quarter of the century, with extreme weather events, rising urban air pollution and climate migration, drove governments and major global cities to act swiftly, and strictly, on climate action. Popular unrest and ardent civil demand led to unanimous agreement that everyone must help the planet to heal.

Protected lands have expanded worldwide, and significant resources have been allocated to restoring ecosystems. The extinction curve is flat and many species previously on the brink of extinction are regenerating. The effects of climate change can still be felt and sea levels continue to rise, yet the impacts are less severe than expected.

SOCIAL MIGRATION RATE- Increased FAMILY SIZE- Decreased (Restricted) LITERACY RATES- Increased

TECHNOLOGICAL

ECONOMICAL

HERITAGE PRESERVATION- Better infrastructure to protect natural and mixed heritage

ECONOMY- Highly regulated – circular- value based

SUSTAINABILITY INNOVATION-Decarbonization applications through biotechnology

URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE- Urban densification for land use measures INEQUALITY- High

LIVING WAGES – Not accessible to majority GENDER EQUALITY- Declining HEALTH – Declining mental health

ENVIRONMENTAL CLIMATE CONDITIONS- Stable weather, 1.5 Degrees increase In global temperature WASTE MANAGEMENT- Upcycling is at an all time high

POLITICAL GOVERNMENT TYPE- Authoritarian-left ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES- Large scale punitive measures – Strict regulations

CULTURAL SOCIAL COHESION- scattered communities, low self reliance VALUE FOR HERITAGE – Cultural heritage is used for individuals at small scale

MIGRATION POLICIES- Protected land has led to mass forced displacement

INCLUSIVITY- Low

PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT- Low

SOCIAL TIERS- Social division has decreased

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CLIMATE ACTION

GENDER EQUALITY

Significant decarbonization actions are mandated globally across sectors.

Climate action and awareness is at an all time high.

One child policies were adopted extensively, restricting reproductive rights. Social issues have taken a back seat as greater efforts are put towards sustainability.

HERITAGE MANAGEMENT

HERITAGE ACCESSIBILTY

WEALTH GAP

Cultural heritage is largely unofficial and managed individually. On the other hand, management of natural heritage has improved drastically.

Cultural heritage is renounced for natural heritage and new order, making it accessible to only the richest few.

The wealth gap has significantly increased. With a top down approch in public policies and heavy influence of the market, urban middle class living standards have declined.

HERITAGE TOURISM

HERITAGE INCLUSIVITY

Heritage tourism is an activity reserved for the top 1% and negligible in the mainstream culture.

TECHNOLOGICAL INFRASTRUCTURE FOR CONSERVATION

Education levels increase globally due to increased spending. 90% of adults’ complete secondary education and 25% pursue tertiary

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SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIES Access to green spaces and natural features is restricted. Compact living spaces in dense urban areas preserve nonurban land.

Conservation initiatives started with restoration of building and has now made conservation of collective heritage easier and effective

CLIMATE ACTION

Declines

Improves

GENDER EQUALITY

SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIES HERITAGE MANAGEMENT

HERITAGE ACCESSIBILITY

WEALTH GAP

HERITAGE TOURISM

HERITAGE INCLUSIVITY

TECHNOLOGICAL INFRASTRUCTURE FOR PRESERVATION

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P A P

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Both people and planet are on the path to a regenerative world. Society consumes resources at the rate at which they can be replenished, populations are diverse, and societal structures are balanced.

Humanity is well on its way towards a shared consciousness and an understanding of Earth’s limited resources – that production and consumption are intrinsically linked to the natural environment.

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Circular processing measures are in place.

Full life-cycle and ecological resource assessments are mandatory for all new products.

Global biodiversity loss has halted, and protected areas are seeing ecosystem recovery. Everyone has, and knows, their carbon quota and daily spend; AI provides daily updates, and state governments penalize overspend. The multi-stakeholder vision for an equitable and thriving future has prevailed.

All global leaders are proud to wear the ‘thriving planet = thriving people’ symbol showing their support for the drive towards the post-Anthropocene epoch. Cities around the world have transitioned from being in conflict with nature to something approaching symbiosis.

SOCIAL MIGRATION RATE- Decreased FAMILY SIZE- Decreased LITERACY RATES- Dramatically risen LIVING WAGES – Accessible to all

TECHNOLOGICAL HERITAGE PRESERVATION- Usage of IoT to monitor and track heritage buildings and artefacts SUSTAINABILITY INNOVATION- Biotech applications at scale to reconstruct ecosystems, Innovations in building materials

ECONOMICAL ECONOMY- The ‘green economy’ employs a large portion of the population URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE- Supportive systems for stable population and natural habitats INEQUALITY- Low

GENDER EQUALITY- Improved HEALTH- Improved

ENVIRONMENTAL CLIMATE CONDITIONS- Ecosystem loss has halted WASTE MANAGEMENT- Global Garbage Protocol has led to decreased waste generation

POLITICAL

CULTURAL

GOVERNMENT TYPE- Democratic government

SOCIAL COHESION- The sharing economy has improved relations between societies

ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES- Regulatory MIGRATION POLICIES- open borders are expanded and individuals have increasing freedom to move around the world

VALUE FOR HERITAGE- Heritage is valued for the social and economic empowerment INCLUSIVITY- Exploration of non canonical cultural heritage is thriving

PUBLIC ENGAEMENT- High SOCIAL TIERS- Social division has decreased

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CLIMATE ACTION

GENDER EQUALITY

Climate action is effective and scalable alternatives to carbon intensive systems are in place.

Equality in education and work has resulted in lower fertility rates. Gender representation in heritage has improved.

HERITAGE MANAGEMENT

HERITAGE ACCESSIBILTY

WEALTH GAP

Management of heritage is participatory and supported by official institutions. The organisation of these institutions is democratic and inclusive.

Heritage awareness and sensitization has resulted in better engagement and access to heritage

The wealth gap has significantly decreased with the rising middle income driven economy

HERITAGE TOURISM

HERITAGE INCLUSIVITY

Heritage tourism is holistic as well as authentic. Tourism is one of the highest income generators in the city.

TECHNOLOGICAL INFRASTRUCTURE FOR CONSERVATION

Better access to resources and education has empowered communities and heritage has a broad meaning that is inclusive and changing.

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SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIES Ahmedabad has recovered from earlier damage caused to infrastructure and now is an integrated heritage smart city.

Conservation initiatives started with restoration of building and has now made conservation of collective heritage easier and effective

CLIMATE ACTION

Declines

Improves

GENDER EQUALITY

SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIES HERITAGE MANAGEMENT

HERITAGE ACCESSIBILITY

WEALTH GAP

HERITAGE TOURISM

HERITAGE INCLUSIVITY

TECHNOLOGICAL INFRASTRUCTURE FOR PRESERVATION

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A N A L Y S I S

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GREENTOCRACY

POST ANTHROPOCENE

The protection and regeneration of Earth’s systems is a global priority which all humans are obligated to adhere to. Strict consumption quotas, facilitated by invasive monitoring technology and authoritarian leadership, have forced a societal transition from a linear to a circular economy. Previously extracted resources make up a majority of the supply chain base; recycling is now integral to all material production. Extreme urban density has been enforced to preserve wild lands and the ecosystem services they provide. Meanwhile, civil liberties are suppressed to ensure humanity’s support of the planetary agenda.

People are living in harmony with the planet.

The political and economic warning signs of unfettered consumption and persistent inequality prompted international and domestic collaboration to transform the status quo.

Value-based economies that respect and integrate nature-based services motivate circular thinking, affecting resource use as well as intensive restoration of degraded natural capital. These advances have improved the quality of life for all species, and human equality is pursued through accessible healthcare, housing, and a stable living wage.

EXTINCTION EXPRESS

HUMANS INC.

An obsession with pursuing economic growth has caught up with the planet and affected humanity’s quality of life. The depletion of Earth’s natural resources has necessitated the expansion of new extractive frontiers in space and the deep sea. The absence of social services makes coping with the health implications of air pollution, job insecurity, destruction of property from extreme weather events, and droughtinduced food insecurity only possible for affluent people. Consequently, domestic and international political stability has broken down, and corporations determine policy.

In the manifestation of our current people first trajectory, social progress is achieved at the cost of planetary health. A focus on technological innovation coupled with tight resource reserves drives efficiency, yet a consumption-based economy continues to degrade the planet. While quality of life has vastly improved for a majority of the population, humanity must adapt to an increasingly inhospitable environment. Social expenditure is high, supporting education, housing, healthcare, and job security as fundamental human rights, yet significant funds are used to offset financial loss from extreme weather-related damage.

The

CLIMATE ACTION

Declines

Improves

GENDER EQUALITY

SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIES HERITAGE MANAGEMENT

HERITAGE ACCESSIBILITY

WEALTH GAP

HERITAGE TOURISM

HERITAGE INCLUSIVITY

TECHNOLOGICAL INFRASTRUCTURE FOR PRESERVATION

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“A concept is a brick. It can be used to build a courthouse of reason. Or it can be thrown through the window.”

- Gilles Deleuze

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CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT

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D E S I G N S T R A T E G Y

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To question what heritage means, the current ideals of heritage of migrant women will be recorded. These narratives will guide the creation of heritage artefacts of the 4 worlds while speculating the future of such artefacts.

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I N T E R A C T I O N D E S I G N

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The final outpput is an exhibition of portable museums and dioramas in public places that attract diverse groups.

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N A R R A T I V E

To provide structure and context to the conversation on heritage, a time travel story has been created Memory, an activist from 2050 has been travelling to alternate dimensions to find a way to save culture on her planet. After mapping the events backwards in these worlds, she finds 2020 to be a significant turning point.

She has come back to 2020, to provoke us to think of heritage, to warn us and maybe change the course of future history.

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The task of visualizing the four scenarios to communicate the state of heritage in these worlds was taken upon.

The first attempt was to show how museum spaces change with changing values. It was then understood that the idea of museum was not applicable to one of the scenarios and couldn’t accurately represent heritage for all calsses, museums being top down operations.

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HUMANS INC. 2050

Cityscape to visualize the arc of the world and color and texture to distinguish each according to its attributes

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EXTINCTION EXPRESS 2050

GREENTOCRACY 2050

POST-ANTHROPOCENE 2050

After the narrative was decided, it also provided a more appropriate format for the visuals that can merge with the timeline.

As our persona travels through different worlds, she creates a board to get to the cause of the scenario going backwards in time.

This will also signify the interconnection of events and far reaching effects of our actions

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P O R T A B L E M U S E U M S

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I N T E R V I E W P R O C E S S

To find the best way to interview, a few options were explored.

Option 1 Interview covering factors of 4 worlds, persona development, prompts on culture and heritage and diorama features.

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Option 2 Prompts for culture, migration and heritage to find most relevant area to focus on. And an idea about personal background

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Option 4 Number of prompts specific to heritage to define suitability for a particular world.

Option 3 Introductory conversation about culture and identity to broaden the definitions.

Prompts for cultural artefacts to find the most relevant area of interest.

A combination of the 4 options, in 4 stages.

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The Dioramas represent ideas of cultural heritage in 4 worlds. To decide the format of these dioramas, different prototypes were made from two interviews to test possible conceptual models.

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In the process of prototyping, the idea of artefacts evolved from being an object representing heritage to a space representing an idea of heritage.

The final conceptual model for diorama is completely narrative based. Taking inspiration from the stories of heritage and place and elements that represent culture.

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DESIGN DEVELOPMENT

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FUNCTION- Carrying possessions MATERIAL- Leather and plastic WEAR AND TEAR- Abrasive USER- Unknown SIZE(mm)- 350x210x168

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FUNCTION- Storage of seized artefacts MATERIAL- Steel WEAR AND TEAR- Light erosive USER- Custom duty staff SIZE(mm)- 350x210x168

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FUNCTION- Portable storage of essential items MATERIAL- Aluminum WEAR AND TEAR- Corrosive USER- Non resident govt. employees SIZE(mm)- 350x260x175

P O S T A N T H R O P O C E N E

FUNCTION- Portable display and storage MATERIAL- Natural pine wood WEAR AND TEAR- None USER- Communities/individuals involved in cultural exchange SIZE(mm)- 320x260x168

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“...Home is not a fixed place. I think it’s something you find continuously or something you create. What I would preserve is the goodbyes that come with separation”.

After being asked about what she associates with heritage, Tanvi tells me it’s the stories.

The railway loop depicts a story of separation as well as the loop of finding a home. The form this takes is of an ipod first generation which remains to hold high emotianal value for her even after becoming obsolete. It’s an object that is close to her identity. Taken as it is, the ipod can also be a cultural artefact that reflects our complex relationship with technology and changing ideas of which objects hold most value.

Our devices not only contain our stories but also become a part of our story, changing us in many ways. With the power to document everything, are we closer to our stories or farther from them?

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“. . .I’d preserve the experience of learning. It reminds me of the line drawing assignments [] from the first year”.

This diorama represents the story of learning.

Niharika talks about her experience of moving to Ahmedabad and learning to adjust, understanding different people and learning to live together In a first year assignment, we were asked to draw straight lines free-hand and were given re-dos mercilessly. The staircases and the space are a collage of elements from her hostel room and the process of finishing the assignment depicting our culture of learning and growing in a new accepting place.

There’s a never-ending debate on the importance of manual skills. Are the ways we learn an artefact of our culture? How does social integration shape our growth?

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“Travel has an impact on our personality in many ways. You get to know your limits. It shows how people are different in different places”.

For Drishti, Heritage means places. She associates it with tourism, as coming from Jaipur, built heritage tourism has been a part of her life. Her ideal tourist experience has been in Kerela. The diorama represents the story of her visit. It is less about the place and more about a tourist’s experience from-flights to vans to boats. It depicts the idea of travel being a window to different cultures and the curated nature of the views we see.

The freedom to move is a forgettable part of our culture. What happens when this exposure to new places is restricted? One of the byproducts of tourism has been waste management issues. Are we better off leaving some places untouched?

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“I remember when I was little I used to go to this playground near my house. We were completely unsupervised. As a shy kid, I learned how to socialize there. It’s the place I associate most with the 90’s culture which is what I’d preserve” Unlike today’s playgrounds, inside apartment complexes, the playground Tanusha describes was accessible to anyone. There were more individual houses than there are today she recollects. This diorama is a representation of the culture she describes. The merry-go-round to be a perfect cultural artefact of that time.

It’s accomodating of a larger crowd than most equipments, you could call it democratic and it has one of the more carefree designs.

What has brought the downfall of merry-goround? Will there even be playgounds when the cities choke with dust and smoke?

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T H E H E R I T A G E D E L I V E R Y S E R V I C E

An important part of this project has been the interview process that helped give shape to ideas of heritage.

The time traveller is the character that conducts the end installation. The purpose of Heritage delivery service is to start a dialogue about what heritage means to different individuals. The service will use the interview sheet to communicate ideas and create a diorama to represent it. The dioramas will be delivered to them at a later date or added to the portable museum collection for other installations as per their choice.

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memento

noun 1. an object or item that serves to remind one of a person, past event, etc.; keepsake; souvenir.

2. anything serving as a reminder or warning.

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THE END.

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