PARTICIPATORY DESIGN

With Bhawna Jamini & Rohini Singh

PARTICIPATORY DESIGN
WITH BHAWNA JAMINI AND ROHINI SINGH

How does one work/approach a community? how can the stories of minority people also be recorded and heard in history? What's a neighborhood museum?

does a museum necessarily needs to be built form or it can go beyond that? what are oral history and its various forms?

where some of the interrogations I pursued in this allied course.

We know so much about the political upheavals, wars, and catastrophes of the past but there is very little known about the lived experiences of the people through those events. This has, of course, changed in the postmodern world defined by developmental challenges researchers, academicians, and historians trying to question, engage and record the lives on the margins. From not knowing anything, we now know too much about that experience of living on the margins but often the gaze through which this information is filtered is mostly of an outsider. In the four weeks we were challenging the hegemonic gaze through which stories of neglected and marginalized neighborhoods are told and perceived. we collaborated with the community of an R&R colony in Govandi to create a neighborhood museum, learning to be collaborators and facilitators of the process, bringing out the spirit and culture of resilience.

WEEK 1

Week 1 was all about reflecting the gaze on yourself. Various small exercises were conducted for the same.

We started with an exercise in pairs that required each person to be an interviewer and an interviewee simultaneously. It allowed us to feel what it's like to be an interviewee. That when you are interviewing someone the basic ideas of CONSENT and COMFORT become very important. Sometimes there's also a layer of hierarchical position that gets added.

interviews can go more smoothly if they are less formal and more like just two strangers having a conversation to get to know each other. often we tend to keep asking questions and expect an honest answer from the interviewee but if you don't reveal a part of yourself in the process how will they trust you? For this also deep listening, engagement, and CURIOSITY are required. Being sensitive throughout helps. Also, consent is something that should be reinforced constantly.

WHAT DOES ONE'S IDENTITY CAN GET DEFINE?

Religion
Gender
Colour
Caste
Class
Education
Sexuality

are the various factors/ layers that are part of our identity.

We were also made to think as to WHAT IS DISCRIMINATION AT A LARGER CONTEXT?

We referred to few readings and documentaries like Cassette tape letters, The river of stories, The best we could do, The unwomanly face of war and Palestine. This readings offered us a larger perspective as to so many such small yet important stories exist out there and also how they can be portrayed in different ways.