Sachi Patil, MA Graphic Communication Design at Central Saint Martins has been selected for the AER residency at Joya: AiR, an international residency for artists and writers.
Set up by Professor Lucy Orta UAL Chair of Art for the Environment - Centre for Sustainable Fashion in 2015, The Art for the Environment International Artist Residency Programme (AER) provides UAL graduates with the exceptional opportunity to apply for short residencies at one of our internationally renowned host institutions, to explore concerns that define the 21st century – biodiversity, environmental sustainability, social economy, and human rights.
Read Sachi Patil's successful proposal:
Sachi Patil is a Graphic Designer and Illustrator from Mumbai, India, currently based in London. She is interested in branding, illustration, typography, publication design, data mapping and art direction. Her work approaches design at the intersection of research and emotion. She tries to create work which connects and questions her audience while inquiring the same questions from within.
The Debris of the 21st Century is an inquiry into the the daily materials of our lifestyle, that we so deliberately use. Yet we are oblivious to the impacts of those materials. The inquiry began with a thought process of what might the future human beings think of our world if they were to dig for treasures from the 21st Century?
In a world where the economy revolves around consuming and producing these objects in a rapid manner, what challenges does that leave in the hands of a designer and how might we understand these challenges and the history of it to tackle it efficiently?
My mother reuses the fabric from our worn our items of clothing to make tote bags, in order to stop the unnecessary usage of plastic bags. Coming from a humble background she understood the importance of respecting our environment and instilled the same values in us.
Since my father is in the Army, my childhood involved relocating every couple of years. This lifestyle forced me to adapt and opened doors for me to experience living amongst various communities, sharing different values and understanding people coming from different cultures and social strata.
I lived among communities such as the Khasi tribe in Meghalaya, who sustained themselves with minimal resources, grew their own food and cattle and recycled their material in various ways. At the same time, I also lived in cities where the desire and pressure to consume and succumb to the need of materialism was inherent.
While shifting towns, villages and cities, my perspective towards a society we live in, which continues to become more materialistic and consumer forced, changed in many ways. This sprung my sensitivity towards understanding how capitalism and culture is impacting my individual expression. I dove deeper into these inquiries during my BA thesis project, which was an inquiry between humans and nature.
Why do we, humans separate ourselves from nature? “Why is it humans and nature? When did nature become the ‘other’? Is this perhaps where all the problems began?”
The project was an experiment on myself to understand the role of the individual in the world of consumption. My work is an amalgamation of these layers of perception, insight and emotion. It is a composite of the world’s current scenario impacting our minds and a visual, sensitive reflection of my relationship with the outer world.
With the help of this residency at Joya, I want to inquire deeper into my ongoing praxis at year 1 MA Graphic Communication Design at Central Saint Martins. By interrogating my daily lifestyle that frames my research area and design practice, I want to dive deeper into understanding how graphic communication design can be used to deconstruct the chain of production and the debris we leave behind in the 21st Century.
I want to further inquire this by two primary research questions that will frame my project — 1) In a society where waste is correlated with class, and transient objects are low-class while antique and durable objects are high-class; what is the approach to a systematic way-finding to break this barrier between low-class and high-class waste. 2) When typical transient objects along with durable and quality objects co-create enormous dumpsites; how might we examine these dumpsites in the 21st century and how does each waste material reflect our patterns of consumption.
I would be honoured to be a part of this residency which will give me the opportunity to collaborate with and understand the perspectives of people who are passionate about what they are doing in their respective fields and co-curate some valuable outputs.
Find out more about the AER 2020 Programme
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