Friday, October 3, 2008
Guidelines for III Sem. Classroom Project
>Set a time line including interaction with faculty and documentation
>It is essential to have a user study
>Prototype is required
>User testing
Monday, May 5, 2008
Topics for workshop in Japan
Thursday, March 6, 2008
"myth and stories of river ganga"
Monday, February 25, 2008
Project Haat Blog
http://projecthaat.blogspot.com/
Keep sending in your comments and feedback... Thanks.
Gaurav Bhushan
Information Design 07 - 09
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Project Haat
The contemporary urban haats in India are seen as a cultural oasis where craftsmen, artisans, merchants and artists from all over the country assemble.
The haat gives them an opportunity to directly market their wares. You can see jewellery, handicrafts, lampshades, pottery, ceramics... the mehendi artist, the micro calligrapher who'll write your name on a grain of rice, the magician, astrologers... and spices!
It is a cultural extravaganza because visitors get to see the diversity in India, witness spectacular performances and also savour Indian Food.
While contemporary haats stay at some defined urban locations and spaces, and the craftspeople change from time to time, the traditional haat orginated as an impermanent village market that is either set up on certain days or moves from one place to another.
The traditional haats were thus reinvented quite successfully to set up contemporary haats, so village goods find their way to a more urban and global market while at the same time prevent exploitation in this exchange.
The Delhi Haat in New Delhi and Swabhumi in Calcutta are examples of such spaces that offer a kaleidoscopic view of Indian Culture through its Arts, Crafts, etc.
My Brief
To study examples of both the contemporary urban haats and the traditional haats, understand and represent these models visually, assimilating information from various perspectives as follows:
1. Social and Cultural Perspective
2. Business and Sales Perspective
3. Environment and Exhibition Spaces
In effect, through all this I want to define the problems and opportunity areas around the concept of HAAT.
Gaurav Bhushan.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Portraying Bengali culture through its cuisine
Bengali food is a mixture of sweet and spicy flavours. A true Bengali considers his meal incomplete without fish. Brinjals & potatoes fried in batter, too make up a great combination with the main meal.
During celebrations in Bengal, food plays a big role as an inspiration towards further celebrations whether its Bengali marriages or the worship of goddess Durga as in the famous Durga Puja or even if there is an intent to spread the flavours across the globe in setting up a food chain.
Five essential spices such as - mustard, aniseed, fenugreek seed, cumin seed and black cumin seed constitute to make up a perfect mix in bringing out the flavours of the Bengali cuisine.
As an information design point of view, I would be focussing on the bigger picture that includes these:
o Bengali cuisine portraying its traditional culture through taste
o Durga Puja celebrations and cuisine in and around Bengal
o An insight, for setting up a food chain, globally
With relations to neighbouring regions or states, how Bengali cuisine in terms of its culture plays an effective role, whether in terms of trade practices in the its spices or in preserving the original taste of this region.
One's own sensitive fingers - is the actual way in which an usual Bengali would enjoy to eat his food.
Among the Indians living abroad, several Bengali occasions are also celebrated and here is where a whole new dining experience with setting up a Bengali food chain could arise.
Kolkata, the heart of Bengal serves as the epicentre for delicious and authentic Bengali food. We would also have some sight into how the city has made a name for itself with the cuisine of this state, on a global perspective.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
INDIAN TRADITIONAL MEDICINES
Whenever we talk about Indian traditional medicines the first thing that comes to our mind is Ayurveda which originated in India and which has inspired the various home remedies which are normally used.
Besides this in Indian culture the food habits are also influenced by the solar and lunar calendar, for e.g. many people don’t eat non-vegetarian food on Saturdays. So this would also be an interesting field to focus on.
So I would be mainly focussing on the Indian traditional medicines including Ayurveda and also on the eating habits related to the solar and lunar calendar. The final goal would be to gather data of the above fields and to present it in the most accessible form.
A relook at the Hindi Lunar Calendar
The main objective is to make the entire system easier for a person to understand with no prior knowledge of the hindu calendar, involving the study and analyze the entire hindu calendar, how dates/tithis in the calendar are calculated and how corresponding days of Georgian calendar are found and identify all the festivals with their respective tithis in lunar calendar and what different phases of the moon means. And will then structure all this gathered information in a proper way so that it is easier to understand and design graphics to visualize this information easier understanding of the hindu calendar.
Origin and Meaning of Symbols in Hindu Culture
Symbols are integral part of any religion and same goes for Hinduism, one of the oldest and third most followed religion in the world. But with time much of these symbols were forgotten and those who survived had lost their origin and true meaning to the world.
Even those who have survived this long have started suffocating in the absence of their true meaning and origin. People have started questioning their relevance and discarding them in absence of any satisfactory explanation.
Today much of the knowledge on the subject either resides with few eminent in the field or lie trapped in books at libraries rarely visited.
The basic objective of the project will be to collect these knowledge, organize and map them in such a way that it becomes relevant to questioning minds and answer their queries.
Storytelling in different states of India
Storytelling in