Society of Materials
A design intervention to aid and facilitate better informed decisions as designers by experiencing materials.
#materials #empower #library #touch
Year / Duration
2019 / 2 weeks
Type
Self-initiated project
Hats worn
Exhibition Designer
Collaborator
Justin Samuel (Content Curation)
Devansh Khajanchi (Visual Design)
Kedar Mogarkar (Documentation)
Shriya Agarwal (Social Media)
How do we make materials a part of the mainstream design practice?
Materials share the same world as us. Where materials and the Society of Materials are as interesting and complicated as the society of people. SOM gets you acquainted with some of them so that these two societies can understand and live with each other better.
‘Society of Materials’ is a design intervention to better-informed decisions as designers by experiencing materials.
It provokes the audience into experiencing materials to understand their tangibility and various properties rather than experiencing them through images in books. The facilitation would help users to develop an understanding of the material culture and provide with knowledge and wisdom for ethical practice.
Europe with a lens of materials - Student exchange experience
The thought of collecting materials started during my visit to Europe (specifically Netherlands) as a semester-exchange student. I collected, experimented, thought, and internalised my relation with materials. Be it the bird house made from cigarette filter waste or holographic film glass stools I saw in Milan, I wanted to share this experience upon my arrival to my alma mater - National Institute of Design, India.
Experiences with material research, experiments, artists, design weeks during my visit to Europe, 2019
"Sharing knowledge : the best way to learn"
THE MESS : Collection of materials before sorting and organising
Directions
My relationship with materials has been described in 4 domains based on the hats I wore :
CONTRAST is the reflection on existing material culture, and their contrasting nature to their intended usage, ALTERNATE are a set of materials that are unconventional in nature, geographically unique to the European continent, COLLECTION are a set of materials that I found interesting, from thrift stores to my friends working on their projects and interesting artefacts of material culture and INVESTIGATIONS are my catharsis with materials.
CONTRAST
CONTRAST is the reflection on existing material culture, and their contrasting nature to their intended usage. Through daily observations, trying to frame design problems and inquisitive questions to tackle the incoherence between the material life cycle and their relative product life cycle.
ALTERNATE
ALTERNATE are a set of materials that are unconventional in nature, geographically unique to the European continent. Geographical exchange brings a culture shock to everything. I tried to redirect my new found gateway of information by collecting and curating non-conventional materials and products I found during my exchange term.
COLLECTION
COLLECTION are a set of materials that I found interesting, from thrift stores to my friends working on their projects and interesting artefacts of material culture. These products help me form a bond with the local European context.
INVESTIGATIONS are my catharsis with materials. This section is a collection of projects I did while I was in my exchange term.
The Booklet
A booklet designed to guide the audience through the Society of Materials exhibition.
The secondary information was consciously placed in a separate booklet for viewers to enjoy and touch the exhibited material samples.
The reader is supposed to use this book if they are curious to know more about the material samples.
Designed by Devansh Khajanchi
Society of Materials / Chapter 1
National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad
Society of Materials / Chapter 2
National Institute of Design, Gandhinagar
