Abstract
This paper focuses on the intersection of design pedagogy and craft to equip marginalised craft communities with design sensibilities and decode future aspirations. Crafts are a precedent to contemporary design practice. In the global south, there is a significant overlap between craft, arts and design. Conventional ‘design knowledge’ has been accumulated by educated populations in urban societies across the world while ‘craft skill sets’ are largely associated with native populations. Facilitators from outside rural communities often use design to impart developmental solutions for these contexts. This approach may undermine indigenous wisdom and practices while addressing regional problems. Another method is to use a group’s own cultural narratives and local context to understand how design thinking can be facilitated to rather unconventional learning groups with barriers of culture and language. Development of design frameworks through participatory workshops and ethnography is used to inculcate design thinking and craft making skills, considering a community’s relationality and the authors positionality to the socio-ecological context in which the process is predisposed. The workshop is done in collaboration with the Gurung community of Chuba village in India as part of a larger project in Sikkim. The exercise results in the development of new knowledge systems and reveals existing ones beyond the boundaries of traditional classrooms. This allows for a regular interchange of roles between the ‘learner’ and ‘facilitator’. The paper aims to help design educators, facilitators or students to create collaborative learning experiences for themselves and the people they engage with for a pluriversal dialogue.
Presenters
Sanskruti ShuklaStudent, Textile Design, National Institute of Design Ahmedabad, Uttar Pradesh, India
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2025 Special Focus—Thinking, Learning, Doing: Plural Ways of Design
KEYWORDS
DESIGN ETHNOGRAPHY, PLURIVERSAL DESIGN, CRAFT-BASED PEDAGOGIES, PARTICIPATORY DESIGN, RURAL DEVELOPMENT
