Information Design

‘Uncertain Present-The Public’ was a Bachelor of Design Year 2 module in Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design, and Technology which I co-taught with my colleague Keya Chakraborty in 2019. Owing to the COVID-19 lockdown, the course had to be conducted entirely online, which necessitated some changes to the normal curriculum. Instead of the 20 students each of us would otherwise have taught in person, we jointly taught 40 students and rejigged two in-person courses into one online course. Together with lectures, we also ran two upskilling courses on Fridays, and students could choose from either Climatology or Geographical Information Systems.

The studio focus and context was Cyclone Amphan, which had devastated India’s eastern coast in 2020 (earlier that year). Students were asked to engage with the fact that there is an urgent need to create systems in which everyone can have equitable access to commons, whether natural or man-made. Against this backdrop, the work of designers can be a potential catalyst for change, and this unit aims to provide the space to engage with the political, economic, social, and environmental inequities inherent in a given geographical context impacted by climate change.

The goals of the unit were to (i) ask critical questions, (ii) respond with empathy, and (iii) design for resilience. These allowed for debate, provocation, and positioning themselves as designers who can challenge the status quo. The students were encouraged to explore utopian/dystopian visions and take a satirical or humorous approach if they wished.

Despite the fact that the students were themselves struggling with grief and loss in the ongoing pandemic, they were all enthusiastic, using the modulen to try new ideas and teach themselves new skills. One of the students, Tvishaa Shah, designed a co-operative board game called ‘Justice Nation’ where players had to work together in order to win, and a mock-up from the board game is in the image above.