Shaktiville: Towards ecologically aware, philosophically robust design.
Or alternately -
Shaktiville: Towards design sensitive and ecologically aware philosophy
Have you ever, as a designer, wanted to deepen your knowledge of ecology? Are you an ecologist who’s always wanted to dabble in design but didn’t know where to start? Or maybe you’re just interested in the philosophy of it all. The Shaktiville Multispecies studio might be just the space you’ve been waiting for.
The design of everyday objects and the spaces that we inhabit leave much to be desired. The reason behind the drastic decline in House Sparrow population, for instance, can be seen as a design failure. House Sparrows nest in and around human dwellings: above the girder, along a wooden beam, under an overhanging eave or in a gap in the stone wall. Our houses once had space for them, until they came to be designed with just the human occupants in mind.
Our design, be it for houses, communities, or cities, is limited by our awareness, our aesthetics and at a deeper level, by our ethics. Our designs are a reflection of what we find beautiful, what we are aware of, and what we think is right.
Which brings us to the Multispecies seminar. To be conducted in the studio format, the Multispecies seminar will bring together artists, ecologists, designers, philosophers, anthropologists and specialists from other allied fields to dream up an ecologically robust community space, called Shaktiville.
You could think of it as a game design for an alternate universe, a workshop to detail the fictional backdrop for a sci-fi novel, or an endeavor that could actually alter our reality by informing tomorrow’s policy. Either way, it is an opportunity to participate in a cross-disciplinary exercise that has the capacity to alter the way you look at and interact with the world.
<aside> 💡 Register for the Multispecies Studio here
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Want to learn more about the seminar? Keep reading….
Socratus's mission is to work for the flourishing of all beings, and the multi species studio, what we call the sensome, is the next step in the evolution of that mission. In the last two years, Socrates has worked in collaboration with various partners. We have created platforms for participatory citizenship and public problem solving.
Designed to cultivate empathy, justice and insight in the face of intractable, so called wicked problems. We have worked in many parts of India such as Rajasthan and Odisha, to organize several citizen events. We also worked in a low income neighborhood in Bangalore called Shaktivel on a ward level citizenship project called Namma Ward Namma Dhwani.