Meghna Mitra

“…SEEING WITHOUT NOTICING.“

I will investigate my ancestry, culture, borders  and its politics and ecology through exploring my new environment and involving my parents with my investigation and making.

Though I wrote all this, I ended up only doing a part of it. There was no making this week, just investigation and reflection. I also wasn’t able to investigate the ecology part as I was in quarantine that week. I finally made it to my parent’s place in Saudi Arabia. It was a strange reunion. Couldn’t hug them. Greeting each other from a distance. Living in the same house but having minimal interaction. It was a relief when I finally got my negative COVID-19 results and I was able to properly greet them ( hugs and happiness all around).

While I was quarantining in my old room, I decided to rummage through all the drawers and cabinets. I found a few old memories. Puppets. Textbooks. Books. Makeup. Jewellery. Board games. Cards. My sister’s guitar that she never learnt how to play. Old art supplies. My sister’s diary haha. Along with the old, there were a lot of new things as well since my parents decided to turn it into a storage room. The printer with no ink. Boxes on boxes on boxes. Carpets. Prayer items. I decided to photograph things that I had not noticed when I was living here but have now caught my interest.

One of first things that caught my eye were some prayer items, specifically the packaging of the prayer items. Pictured below is Haldi (yellow: turmeric powder) and Kumkum (red: turmeric powder + slaked lime). Haldi and Kumkum are used for social and religious Hindu markings in India.

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I am amazed by the amount of detail and information the packaging contains considering it’s the size of a coin. Top. Side. Bottom. Illustration. Typography in English, Hindi, Kannada. Symbols. Colour. It’s an item I saw almost daily but failed notice. I was seeing without noticing. Perhaps I should be more aware of the experiences I take for granted and it might lead me to little gems like these. Was it due to a certain subconcious bias against locally designed items that I failed to notice such things? Am I noticing it now because I am trying to unlearn such biases? Is the way I am viewing such items coming from a “tourist” perspective?

Another line of questioning I had was about borders and ancestry and how they are intrinsically tied in my case. Though I have to talk to my parents to be able to investigate this so this would have to continue to the next action. I also wanted to continue investigating notions of nature and ecology after my limited idea of nature hindered me to understanding and making with it. This would also have to continue into my next action as I am in quarantine. I used this quarantine to think about what is nature where I live? Saudi Arabia. Desert for miles upon miles. Shrubs. Palm trees. Date trees. Sun. Heat. No clouds. Sand. Rocks. How do I integrate nature in my practice? How do I integrate it in a way that doesn’t exploit the abundant resources they have provided us? Could nature be a collaborator in my making?

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I would like to conclude with something that is not that I made from my actions but is related to it. Recently, I was commissioned to create a logo for sustainable handicraft shop that would be based in Kolkata and Gurgaon, India. Et Al.

I was only commissioned to create an English logo but I also went ahead and created Hindi logo. A first for me. I include this because this is the first time I conciously decided to change my practice according to my ideals. To have vernacular languages on equal footing with English. I am not getting paid for the Hindi logo but this was a necessary step. I still want to create the Bengali logo but I will do that once this is approved. Creating vernacular equivalent logos is hard since there is little information on creating vernacular type from scratch and its forms are vastly different from English so the same rules don’t apply but I am willing to use intuition and learn along the way. Currently, I am excited for the trajectory in which my practice is changing and I look forward to what I create in the future.

“NOT ALL PASSPORTS ARE MADE EQUAL.“

This past week and a half, I have been moving around a lot. I moved from Mumbai to Dubai and will later be moving to Jubail. Everything has been moving so fast, that it almost doesn’t feel real. When I was in Mumbai, I almost never stepped out of the house unless I absolutely HAD to do something. Then now that I am in Dubai, I am going out more frequently (I only had to quarantine until I got my negative result) and I constantly feel aware of my surroundings, taking care not to touch any surfaces and if I do, constantly sanitizing and feeling even more careful in more crowded spaces. It’s been hard to relax when I always have to be aware. I feel these behaviours are something that have been ingrained in me from when I was in India where I had to be especially carefully due to the sheer amount of COVID cases that is rapidly growing in my country. Massive population + small spaces + widespread misinformation + government incompetency = a lot of COVID-19 cases. So far, I have taken 3 COVID-19 tests and one more is scheduled when I landed in Saudi Arabia.

Throughout the week, I was faced with the idea of borders and all the procedures that I had to go through in order for me to be allowed to cross these borders, especially during these times. I was also reading Mahmoud Keshavarz’s Design Politics of the Passport so it really put everything into perspective. Let’s break down my journey. I lived in India. I want to go to Saudi Arabia. People from India aren’t allowed to go to Saudi Arabia due to India’s MANY COVID-19 cases. How do I go to Saudi Arabia then? There is a loophole. I go to Dubai where people from India are allowed to go and stay there for 2 weeks to prove to Saudi authorities that I didn’t come from India. It’s an expensive loophole. You have to pay for 2 plane tickets, the visas, the hotel, the food, COVID-19 tests etc. There is a privilege that comes with being able to travel like that.

There’s also a glaring double standard to all these procedures and permission and border control. The idea of not allowing people from India is understandable. India has a lot of COVID-19 cases and you don’t want these cases to spread in your country. Fair but this travel ban doesn’t apply to the U.S., the country with highest COVID-19 cases in the world. U.S. citizens can go directly to Saudi Arabia. No loopholes. This made me think about passports, the power or powerlessness it holds depending on which country you come from. Not all passports are made equal. It’s something I always had to acknowledge. I am intimately familiar with border procedures and permissions having moved from place to place my whole life. I always worried if I had all my papers with me when I go to the airport or risk not being able to go anywhere. Double checking. Triple checking. I never could just go anywhere, I always had to gather permission which depending on certain countries could take months. It’s tiring and tedious and frankly, upsetting to think about. Always worrying if you have the “right” documents or the “right” passport. I can’t help but feel a little powerless since a lot of these systems and procedures I have to follow are out of my control.

Though I did all this speculation on passport and borders and power. I was too upset about it to even want to confront it for my video. Maybe in a later action. I decided to go for a much more specific route, my name, particularly my last name. Mitra. Another thing that I was suddenly being made aware of since I was signing a LOT of papers during my move. Mitra means friend in Bengali which is what I love most about my name : ) When I was signing these documents, I couldn’t help but confront the pronunciation of Mitra in English versus the pronunciation of my name in Bengali. Mitra vs Mitro. It’s always something I found strange when people transliterate Bengali words into English. Some of the ‘a’ in certain parts of a word are pronounced as ‘o’.

Frankly, there’s no logic to when should certain ‘a’s should be pronounced as ‘a’ or ‘o’. At least , I think there is no logic. Further research needs to be done. It’s something you understand as you speak and get a feel of the language. My father always used to tell me it’s because the British couldn’t pronounce these ‘o’ sounds so they just pronounced it as ‘a’ and that’s how Mitro became Mitra. Now I don’t know if that’s true but if it is, that’s some messed up transliteration/spelling. It’s confusing but funny. The above video deals with this dichotomy of my last name. Officially I am Mitra but culturally I am Mitro. Mitra is now set in a binary of the official and the cultural. The above video represents that binary and the confusion and the hilarity behind it.

My second video exploration is of nature and the environment. In action 3, I attempted to explore nature by going to a garden and collect leaves, seeds and flowers I found interesting. Once I collected everything, I didn’t know what to do with all this material and ended up leaving it for the time being. After my peer engagement session, it made me realize how limited my view of nature is. Is it because I was living in a city and got an impression that nature doesn’t exist there? It was unconciously done. Nature isn’t just trees, leaves and flowers, it’s also sunlight and air and water and earth. I am nature as well. I live and interact with the environment. I unconciously considered nature as separate from myself when I am actually a part of it. This video is ecological research and how it can inform myself and others about the world. Now that this research has been done, how will it inform my further actions and practice? By learning from nature, how do I not exploit it but use it to create a more sustainable, thriving world?

“A MIMICRY OF NATURE’S ARCHIVAL SYSTEM…”

Action 4 called for exploring the broader contexts. Looking back at action 3, I decided to map out all the places I went for it and the places surrounding those places. In action 3, I realized that though I did go outside and interact with people, I never interacted with nature. I decided to go to the garden near my house to start my interaction with nature. While I was there, I decided to collect all the things that had fallen to the ground that I found interesting.

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I went back home with all the leaves, seeds and flowers I picked up and laid them out. Then I hit a road block at this point. I didn’t know what to do with what I found so I decided to come back to this later. The garden was perhaps not the best place to experience nature as it’s a human constructed version of nature with the experience already laid out for you.

I looked back at my map and decided to revisit the street food stall where I put my sticker survey in action 3. This stall sells vada pav, a batter fried spiced mashed potato ball in between bread with several chutneys. It’s meant to be eaten quickly or on the go, ideal for the average Mumbaikar who is always busy and has some place to be.

When I thought about it, it’s such a well thought through snack for people in a city that have no time to wait around. You could hold it with one hand, the chutneys is soaked up by the bread so nothing drips out but the flavor is maintained, the batter fry adds a crunchy element and doesn’t allow heat to escape from the filling which is made from potato which makes for a substantial snack. Plus it only takes a minute to make since everything is prepared beforehand.

I bought some vada pav and went to the garden to eat. The lady at the stall constructs the vada pav in front of you. She first tears the bread halfway then adds the wet chutney then the dry chutney and then finally the batter fried mashed potato ball which she then wraps in newspaper if you want it to go.

The one I had wasn’t the best vada pav but a bad vada pav is still a pretty good vada pav. It was salty, minty, garlicky with a slight spice from the mashed potatoes and crunch from the batter fry. The lady at the stall didn’t want the picture of her stall taken so I decided to make diagrams to break down what the stall looks like and the construction and packaging of the dish itself.

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I found the use of newspaper as packaging amusing due to my personal relationship with the newspaper. I used to work in an ad agency where a lot of my work involved print media, namely newspaper ads. I used to make dozens of newspaper ads week after week, sometimes working overtime or spending nights at work to make sure it’s perfect for print the next day. It was humbling to say the least to see a medium that was such a major part of my job as what was essentially a disposable plate.

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The use of newspaper was especially interesting when I thought about India’s relationship with the newspaper. It was interesting to see the newspaper still being circulated but stripped of its original purpose. Since Independence, newspapers have always the dominant medium for spreading information and it still is. Almost every household has a subscription to several newspapers. It’s a fast and cheap way to get your daily news. While the digital space is certainly growing rapidly in India with the advent of cheap smartphones and data, the newspaper has already established a wide reach.

But ever since COVID-19, print production has stopped in India. The halt of newspaper production is a concerning issue since the newspaper was a lot of people’s only source for accurate information. Now there is a lot of reliance on word of mouth and digital spaces such as whatsapp and social media where accountability and fact checking has always been an issue even before COVID-19. This has spread a dearth of misinformation throughout the country about COVID-19 and other issues.

While I was packing (I was moving out), I was rummaging through my closet and I found the first two ads that I ever made that went into production. For my making, I decided to go full circle and use these newspaper clippings to make a plate.

Originally, I was going to papier mache the paper and mold it to an existing plate but during the peer engagement (loved that discussion with the class), Melanie brought out an interesting point of the form of a plate and the kind of information it stores. Is the plate as we know it a Euro-centric idea of a plate (Helvetica as a plate, as Melanie put it)? And then Charles brought up how in rural India, leaves are used as plates. These conversation got me to rethink the form and making the plate.

First, I thought about the making of a plate. The use of hands, the potter’s wheel, the circular motions. Second, the leaf plate got me thinking about material and how its origins from nature. Newspaper also comes from trees which led me to think about tree rings. Tree rings are so interesting because it is like a tree’s archival system and which are often circular in nature. You can tell its age and the changing climate. The newspaper is also a archive but of human history which led me to think how can I meld these thoughts of circles, tree rings and newspaper into my plate which led me to the below creation.

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The purple and green areas are the first newspaper ads I ever made. I used 1.5 cm wide strips and arranged them in a spiral/circular format to make the plate. It took about 2.5 days and a whole newspaper. It’s rough and uneven. It’s surprisingly sturdy even though it’s made of very thin paper. It’s interesting how I can spot which parts are images and which are words by looking at the coloring. A mimicry of nature’s archival system using a human archival system.

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I feel that after the peer engagement and this action I really need to rethink what my idea of nature is and how I situate my work. Thoughtout my actions, I have truly never explored the idea of nature. Louise brought up a really beautiful point that we have this perceived notion of nature that has to do with greenery and forests when nature is also the breeze that blows on your face or the heat of the sunlight you feel on your back. How do I rethink my perceptions of nature? How do I intergrate nature into my thoughts and process?

Zahra also brought up an interesting notion of my actions being a protest. It’s funny because I never thought of it as a protest just a very personal journey but I am questioning certain established ideas so that is probably protest. If I look at my future actions as a protest, will the way I perceive and create change?

“RELATIONAL DESIGN…?”

I decided to explore relational design as my stretch lexicon. I was not really sure what relational design really was? I decided to do a very rudimentary google search.

“Relational design is preoccupied with design’s effects, extending beyond the form of the design object and its attendant meanings and cultural symbolism.”

Walker Art

I further read the words “experiential” and “participatory” so I decided to go from there. I printed a bunch of flyers that ask people to place stickers which I provided along with the flyer onto the paper. I wanted to see how people were relating to the flyer. If they would even respond to the prompt. How did they respond to the prompt.

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I suddenly realized something during the process of writing the simple instructions when creating the flyer but I will elaborate on that later. I took these flyers and place in various places in my neighbourhood. My building’s elevator. The next building’s elevator. A street food stall. A bench. The ocean promenade.

The next day, I went to check on the various flyers. The ones on the bench and the ocean promenade were taken down by the police so none of the public got to interact with the flyers. The ones by the building elevators, people actually responded to the prompt. They came back with two very different results.

The flyer of my building is completely filled with stickers. All the stickers were used. The flyer of the next door building was pretty sparsely filled with stickers. They were socially distanced stickers. At first, I was surprised that people even responded to the flyer at all. Then, I found it interesting that even though these buildings were part of the same community, the results were very different.

As for the one by the street food stall, there was very minimal interaction so I can’t comment. The flyers are still out in these places so I can further see the results over time.

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Earlier I mentioned that I realized something while writing the instructions for the flyer. Before I sent out the flyers to the printers, I had one last look through and I realized I wrote the instructions down only in english. I live in Mumbai, India. The main languages spoken here are hindi and marathi. I just forgot to even account for the people who speak those languages. I was pretty disappointed in myself at that point. At dialouges, we just had that talk about decolonizing design and here I was following a colonized idea of the english language as the be all, end all (albeit, subconciously).

I just realized how ingrained this mindset was in my head and how ingrained it is in our education system. I decided to address this through the action. I asked myself what is the most glorified latin typeface in design history to this day? I looked back to design school and that was of course, Helvetica. There is a two hour documentary that we watched on it, not really understanding why we were watching it. So I printed out the alphabet in Helvetica then I painted it over with various Indian languages. Hindi. Bengali. Gujrati. Odia. Dogri. Kannada. Malyalam. MeiTei. Punjabi. Santhali. Tamil. Telugu. Urdu.

Then I stuck all of them on the wall and looked at it. I don’t know any of these languages fluently. I grew up speaking Bengali but I can’t read or write it. I speak very broken Hindi and can’t read or write it very well. Having to learn English was a necessity in order for me to adapt to many different situations but in the process, I lost touch with my native tongue. During the breakout session, Jeffrey posed the question of whether I would learn Bengali and who would I learn it from?

I have tried to teach myself Bengali before without much success since it’s a fairly complicated language. If I had to learn Bengali, it would have to be from my parents. Bengali is very personal to my identity and I would love if the ones who taught me to speak the language also taught me to read/write it instead of some online course which is highly standardized and impersonal. With my parents, there would be some ancestral history involved with the teaching which would motivate me to learn.