Design as conversation builder
Jogi Panghal
In this article designer, researcher, teacher and thinker, Jogi Panghal reacts to a lecture, “Why Design Matters”, delivered by Uday Danadavate to the students of the Institute of Design, Nirma University, Ahmedabad, India
Uday Dandavate gave a rousing call for reimagining design to young joiners of NIRMA the other day. Design has suffered far too long to be constantly associated with new product making. As if every ‘solution’ to a problem has to be more material objects. Like a hammer searching for nails! ‘Innovation’ is the new name for this trail of our collective destruction.Didn’t word design always mean/contain responsible innovation within it?
Uday urges us to look at design as conversation builder, as a process that seeks to involve us all in re-imagining our preferred collective futures. Using tools and techniques of design, he encourages us to move away from mindless object making. How can design bring a new mindfulness to it all? He suggests that we think of design as primarily a catalyst in building this social conversation. And we need to do this urgently as we have run out of time to course correct our journeys on this beautiful planet.
Not for him, the design for yet more objects or ownership of a ‘label’. Others can do that. He set out to use Design to invent a new social conversation that enables us all to imagine afresh and co-design our own dreams within a frame work of responsible and sustainable.
I liked Uday’s inspiring address on other counts too. As a scion of a leading political family and a supporter of a leading political school of thought, he has been prolific in his writings and consistent in the values that he upholds. When he chose US as his karmbhumi, we feared that that he would perhaps be swallowed by capitalism and its own belief systems. But he has quietly found his niche in the market place of possibilities in the US. At the core of his search for an approach to Design has been the same set of foundational values of justice, deep empathy and real love for humanity that he picked up while growing in that memorable and iconic space called Dandvate home at Delhi’s Ashoka Road!
It seems that all those key moments of learning at NID, hard work at the Dandavate constituency of Rajapur, Ashoka Road reflections with mother. and several term member of Parliament herself, Pramila Dandavate have all conspired to come together in this unique Sonicrim upaj.
Uday’s talk triggered a memory in me and its possible parallel with his own current talk brought a smile to my face. Was son mimicking his father as Uday defines design now as a conversation builder. Prof Madhu Dandavate defined politics as an art of actively building discourses across political, economic, technological, environmental differences to open doors to imagine new possibilities for poorest of our own people.
To actualise Konkan Rail, Prof Dandavate had founded a ‘grand discourse’ around issues involving economics and challenges of tracks on fragile coast, justice, empathy, development, environmentalism, access, empowerment, resource generation, modern technology and architecture, income generation and livelihood support systems. It is this wide ranging and inclusive discourse that enabled establishment of Konkan Rail, modern India’s greatest achievement in Rail and arguably social expansion of konkan mindset.
In a sense Uday is now setting up his own ‘konkan discourse’ for design development that helps to guide his clients to discover newer opprtunities in their own domains/industries. He is getting them to come to certain alignment through these magical conversations so that an agreed common language/path emerges that helps to unfold the choices that people have to live their lives. It seems to confirm that old adage: no matter where you go, there you would always be..Some times we manage to go around the world to then reach home!
As he digs deeper and shines brighter with emerging clarity, his address is also a gentle call to our dear Design educators to seed his ideas in their curriculum. We need that here more than anywhere else. As a youngster noted, Uday exudes a charisma that is enchanting. They perhaps were searching for someone to resonate with their own deeply felt concerns about the world. They have found one today.
The author: Jogi Panghaal is an Indian designer, researcher, teacher and thinker, with a special focus on how designers play a key role in social innovation and sustainable livelihoods. Jogi works with artisans to use their traditional skills to find new markets for their old/new products as well as that he works with industry to enhance concepts of design. For many years Panghaal was a contributor to Doors of Perception, a conference and network in which design, industry and social science collaborate to develop new ideas for service design. Panghaal graduated in Product Design from the National Institute of Design (NID) in Ahmedabad, India in 1977. He co-founded Lifetools in New Delhi to provide product design and communication services to communities, both rural and urban that needed design help. Mr. Panghaal has been a visiting teacher at National Institute of Design in India, ID, at Les Ateliers Paris, at the School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi and at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam.
