Interactive activity book and App designed for craft education.
Project Brief :
The Indian crafts industry has been of growing importance recently. There is importance given to the implementation of crafts education in India and in Indian communities. Since time immemorial, crafts practices have held an important role in society and has had a large impact on cultural rituals that take place today. There is a need for fostering craft education in a collaborative and interactive environment. This project proposes the need for promoting craft education through the spirit of conviviality.
Project Goal :
My thesis project aims to create a space that is geared towards curating and designing an immersive experience in the form of an interactive book and an app. The book consists of various craft based activities that would be carried out by middle schoolers. The activities in the book teach the middle schoolers about specific indian crafts whil enganing them in the crafts itself. The objective is to have the book be a stepping stone for further craft learning and education.
Project Guides :
Arzu Mistry, Meera Curam and Padmini Nagraj.
Project Duration :
6 weeks - Semester 8 Thesis Project
Field Research :
My primary research included speaking with the various craftsmen, teachers and students. Most of the craftspeople were at the CKP Art Mela. I was given a better understanding of the problems and situations that the craftsmen are put in. I also managed to speak to a Kalighat artisan later on in the project and understood his artform and how he creates his artwork. I was also lucky enough to attend a workshop on weaving, which engrossed me into the process and allowed me to see the craft form from a different perspective. Their education is mainly heritage based, which is passed on for generations and taught from generation to generation. The primary research also included speaking to teachers over the phone and gauging through the issues teachers face on a day to basis. A group of friends that included of Kritika, Aditi and myself also managed to visit the Lightroom Bookstore in Cooketown. I was also lucky to attend a weaving workshop with a master weaver. This better helped me understand the art of making by hand, and how tools are an extension of the body.
Given above are images from a loom that I worked on myself.
Kolam I worked on myself as a part of my personal making practice.
Secondary Research :
Affinity map and other maps made during the classes we had. This was to better understand Indian craft practices. The mapping was done in groups on 3 people each.
On the right is mapping that I did individually.
I also mapped out different subjects middle schoolers have to better understand where craft forms could be implemented into the CBSE syllabus. This was after I researched about the new NEP regulations that requires the Indian State Board to use craft learning in school subjects.
Below are results from a survey that I had sent out to middle school teachers.
‘‘
Art inclusivity teaches free thinking - boosts
creativity and allows the flow of emotion through craft.
-Venky Raju ( Teacher - Envision High)
I mapped out a few illustration based Indian crafts and then studied the value that one could gain from these crafts. I noted down what each craft stands for, the process that goes behind making these crafts and their importance today. What was the most interesting was the fact that most of these crafts today have taken up a contemporary context.
Given below is an empathy map made after the conversations with middle schoolers - Shiladitya Sengupta, Ranbeer Singh and Raghav Jolly.
User Testing Sessions :
The two user testing sessions that i had a chance to work on was really helpful in terms of feedback and review. Considering that everyone was at home andworking through zoom i had to keep my options limited. I worked on how i would have to facilitate the exercises in my book on call and went forward keeping the limitations in mind.
The results from the first session where i practiced the first exercise went quite well. I was able to make everyone gather patterns from their nearby environments and then also asked everyone to use those patterns in the work that was given to them. The first exercise was related to the craft of Gond, which is heavily focuses
on mother nature and gives a lot of emphasis to such also.
Above is work done by Tarushree during the first User Testing Session.
The second user testing included me working with the same group and in this session that i facilitated, i made everyone watch a video of Samir, the Pattachitrakar who works with Kalighat paintings explain his craft form and also dictate a story of Ramayana. The story recited by him was really interesting to watch as whole class. After watching the video, the task given to the groups was to create a story of their own using the motifs from Kalighat paintings given to them.
The results from the second session were quite fruitful. The groups had a lot of fun creating their own stories and reciting them after each other. Each group had their own process for creating the stories too. That was the most interesting part of it all. Understading how everyone took turns to create a story with characters given to them was really interesting. One of the groups decided to create a story that was very similar to the one depicted by Samir, whereas another group decided to create a new story from scratch. The approach by the groups were both humorous and intelligent at the same time.
Final Outcome :
The creative phase of the project covers the iterations, ideation, mood-board and the work that led to the final outcome.
During the initial ideation phase i was considering creating an application that would only facilitate collaboration between students for craft activities. What i was looking at were different methods to collaborate and draw using AR as a feature. I looked at different platforms that had implemented this already, one of them was Sketch AR.
I also looked at the recently released Adobe AR to see if i could that to implement a sort of a treasure hunt in a real world environment.
Initial iterations for the activity book's layout:
The Final Book :
The Final App :
Thank you!
