Over 30 million children in India attend classes 7 and 8, with 6.7 million teachers teaching up to secondary (classes 5–7) schools. Of these, art, craft, dance, and theatre teachers are called specialists. Many Indian states have cut down on the number of specialist teachers appointed to fill the vacancies left by retiring teachers as well as new appointments. For example, in Kerala, where new appointments hadn’t been made since the Right to Education Act in 2009, fresh art teacher appointments were made in 2016. The state provides teachers with a comprehensive syllabus, lesson plan, and evaluation criteria. The syllabus is outlined in separate source books for primary (classes 1st to 7th) and high school (classes 8th to 10th). A state resource group (SRG) of teachers, aided by artists and content creators, curates and prepares this material. The state of Maharashtra instituted elementary and intermediate drawing exams in 1880 to help children interested in art take it up professionally. Qualifying these exams helps children pursue careers in art education.

The interviews reveal that art teachers in schools often cater only to the syllabus of such examinations by tailoring class lessons according to the syllabus. The well-performing students are advised and coached separately to appear for the exams. Almost all art teachers we interviewed in Maharashtra taught the exam syllabus in classrooms and conducted private lessons for students preparing for the exams. We realised that the artwork produced by children was a direct consequence of the evaluation-focused instruction provided by teachers; hence, a study of the teachers’ perspective on art education was necessary.

An organisation founded in 1991, Kerala Jaiva Karshaka Samithi is a forum of organic farmers in Kerala. This association has units in almost all districts in the state. Each unit conducts monthly meetings in the field for organic farmers and shares ideas and suggestions for improving their agricultural activities.

In addition to farming, planning meet-ups, and engaging with governing bodies in activism, KJKS publishes a journal called Ore Bhoomi Ore Jeevan (translated as One Earth, One Life, or OEOL), which details new practises in organic farming, features stories from members, provides news of the organisation’s activities, and hosts farm visits across the country, serving as inspiration to the community. I had read some issues of the magazine back in 2012 and felt what they were doing was commendable and worth volunteering my time to improve their design language and streamline the typographic delivery of their sections and stories. My then-job prevented me from devoting any time to the project. When the chance of an opportunity to work in Kerala arose, I decided to see if they were open to letting me work with them in exchange for learning how such intentional communities work and meeting interesting people.

Over email, I proposed a revamp of the KJKS website, building an archive of articles from OEOL and creating a seed database for Kerala based on insights and information from KJKS members. We agreed to meet during their annual state committee meeting.

In an act of civil disobedience against the British rule of India and their misappropriation of power, Mahatma Gandhi and 81 fellow satyagrahis marched from Sabarmati to Dandi in Gujarat, breaking the salt law that criminalised domestic manufacture of salt.

The event is often presented as a textual and other media-rich narrative (documentaries, films, and books). The wealth of data available in March has so far not been presented as a narrative. This project has an exploratory focus on such a data-centric narrative, aspiring to enable a fresh perspective on March.

Through an interactive data visualisation employing numerical and other data (a historical timeline on salt taxes, distances covered, halts, crowds attending meetings, number of women, donations from various groups, and analysis of the content of Gandhi’s speeches along the way), the project proposes a retelling of this historic event in a data-centric narrative to communicate the feelings of nationalistic pride and highlight the significance and rich historical context of the March.

The project, deployed as an interactive website, is shared online, and people are invited to interact with the data. The evaluation takes into account observations, feedback, and suggestions for improvement from the visitors, gauging the impact and fine-tuning the experience.

Primary art education in India is troubled by a lack of infrastructure and insufficient teachers. The syllabus loses its effectiveness while being translated into classroom instruction. Children produce artwork that lacks character and is monotonous. This dearth of variety can be attributed to an absence of divergent thinking and ineffective systems supporting such thinking. We propose a design-led intervention in the form of a prompt generation tool as a step towards building better support systems and affecting change in teachers outlook. The prompts present familiar objects in unfamiliar situations. These help children think beyond the obvious, trying to deal with the situations presented. Our focus was on achieving rich variety in the art produced by children. The preliminary evaluation of our tool shows promise.