DIPLOMA PROJECT PROPOSAL: SHAILEE ADKE
INTRODUCTION:
My graduating diploma project as a student of Textile Design in Srishti School of Art Design and Technology is part of a larger and long term project - a collaboration between Srishti and the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB).
IIMB had already chosen Ramanagaram as their site of study and development. IIMB discovered that the women in Ramanagaram are traditionally skilled in embroidery and wanted to explore ways and means whereby their present skill sets could be harnessed and accentuated into livelihood opportunities for the families of these women.
My initial idea for the diploma project was to design textiles-based accessories using embroidery, which coincided with IIMB’s project brief and hence I chose to work on this project
Objective:
My project involves a group of women in the urban slums of Ramanagaram, who are traditionally skilled in embroidery, more specifically trained in ‘ari’ embroidery. My objective is to enhance their skills through participative methodologies and design facilitation in order to develop accessories that I aim to design for the contemporary market.
I plan to design specific accessories with surface embroidery, namely pouches, handbags, belts, scarves/stoles, footwear, etc. for a specific target audience as part of a collaborative process of co-creation with the Ramanagaram women embroiderers.
The women in Ramanagaram currently have a limited target audience which consists of buyers only in and around Ramanagaram. My contribution to their practice would be to expand their possibilities so that they can cater to customers in urban spaces like Bangalore and other big cities.
Background:
IIMB approached Srishti with a project which involved training women from the urban slums of Ramanagaram in embroidery and producing accessories with surface embroidery for a niche market. Since I have always had a keen interest in both ‘embroidery’ and ‘accessory design’ and I also have the required skills, I chose to work on this project in collaboration with IIMB.
Between August 2008 and September 2009, IIMB conducted a year‐long study with 100 poor families in Ramanagaram. Entitled ‘The Financial Diaries of the Poor1,’ the study tracked the daily cash inflows and outflows of these families. According to the study, most of these families are indebted to several creditors and have very little means of livelihoods. Very few individuals are permanent employees, working as sweepers with the municipal corporation, for instance. Others work as temporary or contract workers with private or government agencies and have no security benefits.
Of the 100 households in Ramanagaram who participated in the study, there are 20 families who are skilled in embroidery - a traditional skill of women belonging to Muslim families in this area. Many girls embroider intricate designs on their bridal trousseaus. There is the potential to upgrade the skills of these traditional crafts persons, expand the range of their designs and products and create niche markets for them or provide them links with existing markets to provide sustainable livelihoods for them.
Context and Motivation:
For me, the products I hope to design working alongside the Ramanagaram women must emerge both from context and process. The biggest context, of course, is the Indian economy and the strides it has been making in recent times in terms of it being integrated into the global economy. In the times we live in both the global and national economies are being increasingly driven by what are called the ‘creative industries’ which are in turn looking to “design thinking and processes” to bring about innovations in a variety of sectors. In this context, the United Nations Development Program suggests that creativity and culture-linked industries were more resilient to the economic crisis that exploded in 2008.
“The report, titled “Creative Economy: A Feasible Development Option,” examined 40 case studies from developing countries between 2002 to 2008 which ranged from Africa’s fashion industry to South America’s soap operas, from India’s Bollywood to Nigeria’s Nollywood, and from Jamaican reggae to Argentina’s tango. It found that creative industries not only have the potential to help developing countries diversify their economies, but that they are also one of the most dynamic sectors of the world economy. Defining creative industries as “cycles of creation, production and distribution of goods and services that use creativity and intellectual capital as primary inputs,” the report shows that while international trade slumped 12%, global exports of creative goods and services increased more than twofold to $592 billion in 2008 from 2002, when the figures were first measured.
I have cited the above to point out that creativity, design thinking and process and innovation today is also linked to both the equity and prosperity of different communities with a view to preserving and enhancing the unique creative capabilities and potentials embedded in the culture of such communities. These communities, like the Ramanagaram women skilled in ari embroidery, as an creative artisanal community, must be so empowered and integrated into emerging business and innovation models so that it fulfills what the report mentions: “it has been widely recognized that culture not only is an integral part of the country’s development strategy, but also generates income, employment and export earnings. India, which is the world’s largest film producer and employs around 5 million people in this industry, showed the greatest growth in exports of creative goods during the 2002-2008 period. 2”
I have been interested in the empowerment of artisanal and craft communities throughout my period of study in Srishti which provides opportunities for students to encounter and work in such an environment with the intention of both preserving cultural heritage and unique craft skill sets and also how to provide these to the community’s advantage in the emerging market spaces. My interest in facilitating such a process as a young designer goes back to some of my earlier projects
I designed stitched products out of waste fabric at KGU as a part of their livelihood support and marketing programme--
At KGU, I was taught how to use a sewing machine for simple stitching. I designed products which required very basic stitching since the women involved had very limited stitching skills. I stitched the prototypes myself and asked them to replicate them. I made pouches, bags, potpourri pouches, fabric toys, and quilts for babies.
I also held a one-week workshop with the ARC (Adolescent Resource Center) and taught basic embroidery and crochet techniques to group of adolescent girls.
I designed motifs and patterns to be woven as a part of Upasana’s ‘Varanasi Weavers’ project which aims at reviving the craft of weaving and the upliftment of weavers at Varanasi--
I did not get a chance to meet the weavers in Varanasi, but worked at the design studio at Auroville. I used my basic knowledge about ‘weaving’ and ‘repeat patterns’ that I had learned in Srishti and the styles of ‘motif families’ that I gathered from the research and training at Upasana.
I designed motifs and patterns for running material for children’s wear. My collection was inspired by ‘insects’ and included 3 families namely ‘bees,’ ladybugs’ and ‘caterpillars.’
I have also received some directions from reading the works of those who have worked hard to preserve and encourage the tapping of the potential in the crafts sector in India – minds like Ashoke Chaterjee, Poonam Kasturi and Rajiv Sethi.
As an Indian, I want to be part of sustaining the unique and varied cultures of craftsmanship found across communities in India. Interestingly enough, a large part of these crafts traditions are located in the textile medium which is my first source for both inspiration and action.
In 2000 Ashoke Chaterjee, Distinguished Fellow, NID, made out a case for “Design for Development: Restoring People to the Centre of Design Education & Practice, where he states:
“Other opportunities too have emerged. These include movements for the empowerment of women and for consumer protection, the new respect for the knowledge and wisdom of indigenous tradition, the revival of crafts world-wide, the search for alternative patterns of income generation and employment to meet the needs of expanding populations, the growing respect for institutions and professions that have a capacity for inter-disciplinary team-work, and the search for values more enduring than their brand-names. Each of these is a potential partnership for 'design for development'. India is in a unique position, and has a unique responsibility, to demonstrate design as an indispensable force for development. It has traditional value systems, linked to systems of learning and production that identify quality in human terms.3”
In her ‘The India Report – Revisited’ – a position paper presented at the Development by Design workshop at the Media Lab MIT 2002, Poonam Kasturi, another advocate for livelihoods for artisans and empowerment of their communities wrote:
‘’The Government of India set up the National Institute of Design in 1961 based on the recommendation of "The India Report" a document submitted by the late Charles and Ray Eames. Over the years it has done pioneering work in different areas of design. One of its most successful development projects was the adoption for development of a group of villages in Rajasthan. Working in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad the project was a successful experiment that underlined the necessity of approaching the concept of development in an integrated manner. But this is all in the past. 4’’
I believe that it was not “all in the past”. Several fresh initiatives in the crafts-based textile field pertaining to design intervention, facilitation and empowerment of crafts communities and artisans have been made across the country by alumni of Srishti (Smita Moorthy with ANT) and institutions like Dastakar, Anubha Sood and Rajiv Sethi.
Anubha Sood, a graduate in Social Policy and Planning in Developing Countries from the London School of Economics, talks about 'Crafts as Sustainable Livelihood Option in Rural India’:
''The handicrafts sector is a home-based industry which requires minimum expenditure, infrastructure or training to set up. It uses existing skills and locally available materials. Income generation through craft does not disturb the cultural and social balance of either the home or the community. Many rural communities depend on their traditional craft skills as a secondary source of income. Their skills in embroidery, weaving, basket-making are a natural means to social and financial independence. Craft is basically a commercial activity. In order to make a living from craft production, the artisan needs to sell his/her products regularly, realize a viable income from each sale and be assured of regular sales in the future. Production for home consumption is radically different from production for a commercial market. Given changing and competitive markets, the traditional craft skill, however beautiful, needs sensitive adaptation, proper quality control, correct sizing and accurate costing, if it is going to win and keep a place in the market. In other words the right combination of human, financial, physical and social capital is essential. 5”
Or there was the proposal, driven by Rajiv Sethi, to set up new ministerial 'Department for Artisans’ to provide "focused attention" to "particularly the marginalized cross-section of society" and "fine-tune several ministries to concentrate on their core activity rather than peripheral issues sapping their energies."
But wherever and whoever takes this approach, as a design student I am interested in the track that is emerging. The IIMB project is one of many such approaches and tracks and has therefore interested me.
PROCESS AND METHODOLOGY:
The IIMB-Srishti project is expected to be rolled out over a long term and my project forms only a tiny part of it, it plays a role in setting the ball rolling within a given framework of time. In fact, it is decided that my project will serve as a “test” for the long-term goal of using design thinking and processes to create sustainable livelihoods for a marginalized community of textile-based artisans who also belong to a marginalized community and gender.
The aspect of the project with which I am involved seems to have two segments to it. The first segment has to do with swiftly ramping up and utilizing their skills with embroidery to generate a series of accessories, all of which will be designed by me. It is a top-down methodology but going through this process will enable me to become familiar with the women in this group, the extent of their skill sets, the products they have on hand and their design thinking, conceptualization and execution capabilities. By creating my own designs that they will execute, they will see possibilities beyond their own range. And the products that emerge from this effort will be tested in a specific elite market in mid-May.
After this point will begin the participatory approach that will focus on collaboration and co-creation with the women. This is the phase where facilitation and hopefully true empowerment, transfer of conceptual and other skills will take place and the women themselves understand and incorporate by doing ‘design process.’ This should bring them to higher levels of confidence in themselves, in the design process, in their visualization capabilities, in the expansion of their skills and in the expansion of their product sets in terms of both range and refinement without any loss of their original essence. The products that will come out of this process of co-creation will be compared with those that emerged earlier and then the niche market(s) can also hopefully be identified for the same.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS:
1 – Embroidery (and crafts in general) is a means of expression. There are certain stories that the designs hold, which have values. How do I induce this sensitivity in the artisans and help them bring out these stories and values to the market in the form of embroidered products?
2 – How do I create an identity for these artisans in the present contemporary context? How strongly will their products represent their contemporary identity which is located in their past?
3 – What does it mean to provide someone with a livelihood opportunity? How do we help them understand the importance of sustaining this opportunity?
4 – How do I make the artisans understand what the market needs, and how do I bridge the gap between them and the consumer?
5 – How do I explain and impart ‘design process’ to the artisans? How do I help them develop a ‘visual vocabulary’ for themselves and enter an iterative process? How will this affect their traditional process?
6 – How is my role as a design facilitator important to the artisans and to the project?
7 – How can I use participatory methods to make this process more fun and enriching for me and for the artisans?
8 – How is awareness about ‘design’ and exposure to ‘market’ going to change the artisans’ way of thinking?
LEARNING OUTCOMES:
- Understanding ‘interaction between design students and artisans for product development’
- Understanding my role as a ‘design facilitator’
- Designing for niche/premium market segments
- Learning about publicity and marketing of products
- Learning about costing of products
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