Ideas uninterrupted!

Practical Solutions

They covered a wide scope of subject matter, from political ideology and visual communication designs to garbage solutions in the City. The display at the Alliance Francaise was worth a visit for the sheer range of in depth analysis, creativity and practicality that characterise the work.

‘Sangama Lab', one of the branches, had a slew of projects. One of them is ‘Street Catalyst’, a civic intervention project that looked at ways and means of controlling garbage and litter on our streets using existing systems.

“We identified and studied patterns of littering and garbage dumping behaviours responsible defacing our urban centres with specific references to places  like Church street,” said Aniruddha Abhyankar, who developed the project.

Avantika Poddar (visual communication design) talked about ‘Bring your own bag’, a project conceived for National Geographic channel after studying the alarming usage of plastic bags in the city. ‘Reduce plastic’ was the slogan used rather than the usual ‘Boycott Plastic’. Recycling waste fabric to make bags and empowering women societies to stitch them was one of the solutions offered by the project.

‘Insectival’ created by Pallavi Manchi studied the play patterns of children in urban spaces and came up with a life-sized board game for children in the age group of 6-8.” Children are curtailed by a shortage of physical space and hence gravitate towards technology and virtual media for entertainment which further alienates them from their natural environment,” she explains.

Some of the challenges faced included understanding the needs of children, generating logical content for the game and using a manufacturing process that was both user and buyer friendly.

The exhibition also included films on current issues involving women's rights and liberties seen and interpreted in a different light, glimpses of life in parts of rural India, relationship stories and issues within the family and poignant tales and accounts of people from different walks of life. ‘Product and interface design’ students showcased ways of designing interiors using traditional Indian crafts and techniques.

They also offered contemporary design solutions for club houses and restaurants and even solutions for cooking mediums in poor rural household in the country. There were also many other different projects, ideas and products that were displayed at the exhibition.