Design X Design, exposé

Design X Design - Exposé

Design in its many manifestations forms an integral part of every culture. Civilizations evolve and attain their full potential because of it. Design based creative industries in India are witness to a fascinating churning, necessitating a search for a vision that may inform their evolution beyond - spanning education, profession and the industry. Thus, involving exposes, roundtables, exhibitions etc. Design X Design is a step in that direction.

The energy behind the design of a pin or a city being the same, this joint initiative of Alliance Francaise de Delhi and Studio IF is also geared towards raising levels of appreciation within and nurturing connections across various creative industries – architecture, urban/ landscape/ interior design, product/ industrial design, textile/ fashion design, graphic/ communication design etc. Local and global in outlook, it is directed at the initiated and the uninitiated alike.

 
About the Presenters

Parthiv Shah, Graphic/Communication Designer

An alumnus of the National Institute of Design, India, and visiting scholar at the University of California, Davis and at the SOAS, London University, Parthiv is a graphic designer and a photographer. He has designed and curated exhibitions, designed several campaigns, made documentary films and has several photo-books to his credit. Growing up in a family of artists and through his own professional training, he brings an interesting intersection of art, photography and design to his work.

Founder-Director of Centre for Media and Alternative Communication (CMAC),  he has been teaching at various design, art, fashion and theater schools across India and abroad. Lately Parthiv has been particularly interested and engaged in working on the issue of image perception and representation.

Photo-books authored by him include: ‘Figures, Facts, Feelings: A Direct Diasporic Dialogue’(published by CMAC), ‘Working in the Mill No More’(published by the Oxford University Press and Amsterdam University Press), ‘Kaaya – Beyond Gender’(published by CMAC), ‘My Body is not mine’(published by CMAC), ‘Narmada’(published by Pratham Books), ‘Art as Witness’(published by Tulika Books), etc.
 

Verendra Wakhloo, Architect/Town Planner

Kasmir born, Verndra Wakhloo spent his growing up years in the Gangetic plains in Bhagalpur, Bihar. Bounty of the surroundings, the sounds of sarod and the temple bells, the deep and bright colours of sky are some of the impressions that he remembers from those days. His twenty years long stay in Germany, from the age of ten onwards, exposed him to the high technology driven society that spilled into his architectural education. at the Technische Hochschule, Karlsruhe where under the influence of Prof. Fritz Haller his exploration into the modernism started.

Leaving behind the sounds of the piano, the church bell and the metal grey sky - inspired by Indian Architects Correa, Doshi and Jain - Verendra returned to India where his initial work involved a search for an Indian identity. Leading to a synthesis through ‘a dialogue’ he attempts to move from the known to the unknown in his work, in search of ‘timeless principles’.

Verendra has taught at TH-Karlsruhe and TVB School of Habitat Studies and has won many awards that include: HUDCO Commendation Award 1990(urban resettlement in Delhi), GEDA Prize 1991(campus design at Baroda), J. K. Awards 1997(housing in urban context), President’s Award 2000(residential schools in New Tehri Town with DKS consultants), MGAHV commendation Award 2002(campus design), A+D /Spectrum 2002(commendation award), World Architectural Festival Barcelona and IIA Award 2008(office for Everest Industries Ltd., Roorkee) etc.