Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology

BBMP COMMISSIONER opens X – the graduate exhibition of the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology at Freedom Park on January 21, 2011

Press Release

Bangalore, January 21 – BBMP Commissioner Mr Siddaiah IAS today inaugurated X - an exhibition of the work of the young artist-designer students of the city-based Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology at the Freedom Park this morning.

The exhibition showcases the work of the graduating class of 2010 from Srishti and is open to the public at Freedom Park between 11.00 am and 7.00 p.m. from January 21 to 24.The Director of the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, Mr Pradyumna Vyas was also an honored guest at the inauguration of the exhibition.

Soon after the inauguration, Mr Siddaiah toured the various works on show and had short discussions with the students. He felt that the work was very interesting and unique and congratulated several students for the works they had put up. He was happy that such an exhibition could be put up in Freedom Park. Speaking on the occasion, Srishti Founder Director Geetha Naryanan felicitated Mr Siddaiah for granting Srishti the use of a space like Freedom Park. Mr Vyas felt that the work done in Srishti and the prestigious name the college had won nationally and internationally in a decade.

The Srishti Grad Show X showcases the work of the 76 Srishti students graduating in the following disciplines: Product and Interface Design, Furniture and Interior Design, Visual Communication Design, Digital Video Production, Textile Design, Sangama Interdisciplinary Lab and Animation and Visual Effects.

Six students from the Advanced Diploma Programs in Experimental Media Arts, Design in Education and Animation are also showing their work in this exhibition.

The art and design concepts and products on display are the result of the final diploma projects undertaken by the Class of 2010. Several projects are original, others are done for industry clients and yet others are artistic in nature and approach.

The outstanding projects include Anees Mekhri’s collection of honeycomb furniture for Lsquare Eco-products and Honey Bajaj’s infant warmer for Embrace. Sadhvi Jawa worked with the urban poor children in Bangalore empowering them with textile design skills to help them create their own embroidered clothes, for instance, while Anushka Sani worked with similar children in Mumbai to make them spruce up their environs using art and visual culture. Rashmi Sirkar did an extremely contemporary and extraordinary mix and match collection of textile accessories.

The projects undertaken this year cover a wide range of student interests. Karno Guhathakurta, for instance, worked with aspects of performance and film, anecdotally exploring his relationship with his grandfather who was close to Rabindranath Tagore. Lara Jaydha worked on the symbiosis of dance and the visual arts in her work “Sama”.

The client projects included Asad Hashmi’s user interface project for Tata Elxsi, Priyanka Kodikal’s concept of the Walla application for mobile phones for Nokia and Nimisha Singhal’s textile collection for Aakaro, New Delhi, Bharat Nandan’s food containers for the Indian Railways, Huda Jaffer’s solar lights for Selco Solar Pvt Ltd, Nachiappan Ramanathan’s sonic sculpture and musical instruments for Svaram, Auroville, and Navackotti’s bamboo products for Atul Johri Designs, etc.

There are students who went into the area of graphic novels, illustrated books and “designer” books that probed meta-narratives. Sharvari Shah created a powerful graphic novel about child sexual molestation titled “Strange Touch”, Urmila Shastry did the same while exploring linguistic divides and Sirawon Khathing captured oral tales of the Naga Ao tribe in her illustrated book “Retold by Grandma”.
A set of five short films made by the students from the department of Digital Video Production will also be screened at X. Another set of six animation films made by the graduating students of the Animation and Visual Effects department will also be screened. This is the first batch of animation students to graduate from Srishti. The films belong to the fiction and nonfiction genres and reflect upon and critique a variety of real-life themes and situations including migration, the stigma of being childless, alienation and angst, etc. A non-linear interactive film using Korsakow software was made by Bharat Haridas. Divya Gaitonde also made an animation film as part of her investigation into alienation.

Other student diploma projects focused on branding and identity (Priya Shah, Swati, Himanshu Sharma and Sargam Gupta) and innovative explorations of textiles and accessories (Aparupa Ghosh for Weavers Studio, Rutika Sheth for Kalaraksha, Mallika Suri for Fabindia and Myrthe Lanting on fashion).

New Media Art projects and technologically enhanced New Media-based facilitation kits for pedagogy were also developed as projects by students from the Visual Communication department like Vishnu Pasupathy, Devashish Guruji, Akshataa Vishwanath, Nandini Chandavarkar, Uditi Shah and Manasi Lamba. Students like Allanah D’Souza and Nalisha Chouraria created “new age” toys, the former to empower autistic children and the latter to question the values embedded in extant toys. Socially conscious students like Aaajwanthi Baradwaj designed solutions for water issues in parts of Karnataka and how they affected children.

Several students have already found their employment spaces with the clients they worked with during the course of their three-month final projects.