EXPLORING CULTURE: AN APPROACH TO EXPLORE CULTURAL IDENTITY
FROM KNOWING CULTURE TO BEING CULTURE
Overview:
Culture is a forgotten dimension in the present educational paradigm and understanding culture requires total sensitivity as it is revealed only by reflecting on our own experiences. But reflecting in a deep manner that would reveal the way we have been shaped, often invisibly and that is hidden in our deep unconscious.
Even when we talk about the culture it is as if a finished product and a sort of monolithic idea that we imbibe through linguistic input. Even though culture is what we actually experience our answer to what Indian culture means would be very textbookish – referring to some object or activity which we would have experienced at all.
Another difficulty is that the meaning of culture is appropriated and has been reduced to mere song and dance rather than the totality of our experience. It is time to situate culture in its original position and see what has been happening to us and how we are being culturally uprooted. Culture forms us and we form culture. Every generation needs to relive, recreate and re-invent certain aspects of its cultural sensibilities by engaging with the reality around them. Unless we have the possibility for organic learning cultural diversity will be a thing of the past. Instead, we will have homogenized, de-sensitized, standardized, and mechanical existence.
Culture is the result of how the aesthetic sensibilities of people get manifested in the things they make and how they live, and aesthetic sensibilities are awakened naturally by engaging with their contexts.
Course Objectives:
To sensitize students to the importance of culture as the basic template for aesthetic development, creation of knowledge, etc. If possible, reconnect with our respective contexts and understand the role of context in shaping ourselves. Also, to expose students to the limitations of mere reading as means to understand life. To sensitize students to how sustainability is a cultural input and how rural tribal areas make life sustainable as a default. Another important exploration is how innovation is a way of life in rural tribal communities.
To explore the role of culture in one’s own formation and the role of the designer in contributing to the formation of culture. To sensitize students to the deeper aspects of aesthetics, context, identity, cognition, rootedness, the meaning of worldview, etc., to achieve the goal, students are encouraged to engage in self-exploration to understand various parameters of culture, to engage in various cultural contexts, investigating the life of people so as to understand design elements that are distinct in terms of identity.
Objective
1. To explore the role of culture in one's own formation and the role of the designer in contributing to the formation of culture
2. To sensitize students to the deeper aspects of aesthetics, context, identity, cognition, rootedness, the meaning of worldview, etc.
To achieve this goal, students are encouraged to engage in self-exploration to understand various parameters of culture, to engage in multiple cultural contexts, and to investigate the life of people so as to understand design elements that are distinct in terms of identity.
INTRODUCTION
CULTURE FORMS US AND WE FORM CULTURE
Every generation needs to relive, recreate and re-invent certain aspects of its cultural sensibilities by engaging with the reality around them. Unless we have the possibility for organic learning cultural diversity will be a thing of the past. Instead, we will have homogenized, de-sensitized, standardized, and mechanical existence.
Culturally rooted?
Culture is the result of how the aesthetic sensibilities of people get manifested in the things they make and how they live, and aesthetic sensibilities were awakened naturally by engaging with their contexts.
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In harmony with oneself-
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balanced biological and psychological needs
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creativity, sense of belonging
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Culturally uprooted
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De contextualized aesthetic sense.
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Culture is learned like general knowledge to be applied at will.
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Like sustainability
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Alienation, homogenization, Inferiority complex, mechanical
THE LEARNING JOURNEY OF THE PROJECT
Students are suggested to follow a two-pronged approach as outlined below:
1. Group-wise inquiry about the life/ background/ belief system etc of each student from childhood to till now.
2. Participate in a group research project and choose to study an artifact/artisan/ an ‘Old Shop’ or a village house etc that should have traditional local community significance
3. Participate in a group research project and choose to study a similar product in the modern context.
4. Study the total system- product, producer, user, raw material, recycling, sustainability, aesthetics, function, etc..
5. Identification of local cultural identity from the selected ‘object' or any product from the village etc
THE APPLIED RESEARCH STRATEGY OF THE PROJECT
Ethnography is used as a means to rediscover the cultural foundations of any community that has been able to preserve their way of life to whatever extent possible. . This means that the students are expected to document their own process of study as well as give insight according to their own personal backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives.
THE IDENTIFICATION OF THE PROJECT
Personal exploration will be the basis from which the students will take up any product or any other aspect for deeper exploration
Learning Outcome:
The students will have a better understanding of the cultural roots of what they design. They will be more sensitive to the cultural practices of rural tribal communities. They will also learn how rural tribal communities create knowledge, retain contextual aesthetic sense and retain their cultural rootedness. The study, outcomes are expected to strengthen applied research skills in studying culture, deepen the sense of appreciation for local culture and design, to re-iterate cultural identity as a value-added for further study in design disciplines
Course Content:
Unit I 2 days
Understanding what culture means- The learning journey of a project. Exploring their own life to decode the changing cultural practices. Students are suggested to follow a two-pronged approach as outlined below: Group-wise inquiry about the life/ background/ belief system etc. of each student from childhood to till now. Going deeply into deciphering one's likes and dislikes, the influences in one’s formation, etc. meaning of culturally uprooted, De contextualized aesthetic sense.
Generating questions, and doubts that can be held for deeper reflection. Reflection as metacognitive awareness.
Unit II 2 days
Documentaries and readings on indigenous communities. Discussions, reflections, etc, generate questions for further explorations.
Unit III 7 days
Visiting a nearby rural community and sensitively exploring their lives without causing any kind of disturbance. Participate in a group research project and choose to study an artifact/artisan/ an ‘Old Shop’ or a village house etc. that should have traditional local community significance
Unit IV 7 days
Participate in a group research project and choose to study a similar product in the modern context. Study the total system- product, producer, user, raw material, recycling, sustainability, aesthetics, function, etc. Identification of arts & design principles of the selected project. Identification of local cultural identity from the selected ‘object’ or any product from the village etc. The applied research strategy of the project through Ethnography is qualitative research, the subjective observations made by the students are considered to be important. They are expected to document their own process of study as well as give insight according to their own personal backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. Personal exploration will be the basis from which the students will take up any product or any other aspect for deeper exploration in later semesters.
Unit V 2 days
Final collation, discussions, presentations
CONCLUSION
Referring to the project brief, students are required to go through the step-by-step research that at the final presentation the results of the study process will be presented which in fact is expected to be the outcome.
The students would get a better picture of themselves, their location in culture etc.
References:
Verrier Elvin
Dharam pal
Ivan Illich
Ancient futures
People of the deer
Culture and cognition
Twice born, Hind Swaraj Gandhi
One Straw Revolution— Masanobu Fukuoka
Marshal McLuhan
Master and the emissary- The making of the western world
Tagore
Anand Kumaraswamy
Luis Mumford
Buck minister fuller
Dumbing us Down and Weapons of Mass Instruction—John Taylor Gatto
Education and the Significance of Life—J. Krishnamurti
The whole movement of life is learning—J. Krishnamurti
A Call to the Youth of India—Sri Aurobindo and the Mother
Cultural action for freedom, Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Pedagogy of Freedom—Paulo Freire
