A wide variety of beautiful textiles ranging from embroideried, woven, printed and painted comprise India’s rich textile heritage. For most of us, there is a familiarity with most of the textiles coming from all parts of India – like Banarasi, Baluchari, Chikankari, Kalamkari, Kanthas, Kanchivaram, Ikat etc. The skill of Indian weavers is... Continue Reading →
In the months of July - September, #projectinterpret explored new avenues of Access through live coverage of talks, apart from the usual heritage, history, museums, arts and culture visits, explorations, workshops and postings. Knowyourcity challenge: started on VarnikaDesigns Instagram and Facebook social media profiles in the last quarter, this game continued with insights across... Continue Reading →
Lord Ganesha or ‘Ganapati’ denoting the Lord of the Ganas, is also known as Ekadanta, Gajamukha, Lambodara. The eldest son of Lord Shiva and Parvati, he is considered the ‘manas’ or mind if Shiva is ‘atman’ or the soul. He is worshipped for his various qualities in the beginning of all religious rituals as he... Continue Reading →
India's first Nobel Laureate, Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore wrote in 1929: I was brought up in an atmosphere of aspiration, aspiration for the expansion of the human spirit. We in our home sought freedom of power in our language, freedom of imagination in our literature, freedom of soul in our religious creeds and that of mind... Continue Reading →
M P Ranjan, India's foremost Design Thinker, said on 16 October 1997 at the AEP Bridge Semester, National Institute of Design: “Design is a responsible and creative activity that aims to understand human needs and aspirations in order to generate effective alternate solutions that can resolve these needs. By its very nature the process of... Continue Reading →
This is part 1 of my History class posts - no, don't worry, I won't teach History 🙂 I'll just share with you my experiences of teaching History to a very, very futuristic AR, VI & AI oriented generation. To the less initiated, like I was at the beginning of these classes, AR is Augmented... Continue Reading →
#projectinterpret was kicked off on 1st January, 2018, by VarnikaDesigns. In the first 3 months, it has gathered its first few pilots and travelled back in time with them. Here's a quick recap below: 1st #projectinterpretpilot is Manju Ramanan, the Editor of the newly relauched Filmfare Middle East, Dubai. She visited Mumbai early this year... Continue Reading →
"The ability to feel, to see, to discover, to think, to build and model, communicate and to evaluate form the core of design learning..." M P Ranjan, NID, 2004 In July 2002, Suranjana Satwalekar initiated me into the blitzkrieg of Design. Bewildered and gawky, I started with thinking that when NIDians went for a... Continue Reading →
The International Museum Day is annually held on May 18th but the Jaya He GVK New Museum authorities planned to celebrate the entire week from May 15th to 19th as the International Museum Week at their beautiful space at the Mumbai International Airport popular as the T2 Terminal. There were workshops, musicial performances and on... Continue Reading →
Akbar_Dyslexia The above is a link to an article written in 2008 in Housecall Magazine by Dr Asok Kumar Das. Most of us might be aware that one of the greatest emperors of the Mughal dynasty, Akbar, could not read or write. He maintained an elaborate taswirkhana or atelier where painters were commissioned to illustrate... Continue Reading →
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