Tuesday, August 7, 2018

Geetha Narayanan

(let me first acknowledge the fact that the person I am going to talk about is my boss. But that doesn't mean that whatever I am going to write about her is in any way is my attempt to impress her. Reasons
1. In 2002, when I left the corporate career, I also had left the idea of building a career for myself perhaps anywhere
2. I am not at all in her good books or perhaps in her any books for that matter 
3.I am also not among one of those in the institute who is 'well paid' or treated above the call of basic institutional requirements, so that I try to impress the boss to retain my position
4. Of course, institutionally or personally she never tried to interrupt my discomforting artistic and political positions or articulations in public platforms. A rare opportunity, I need to acknowledge with sincere regards)
A leader of unmistaken integrity and vison.:
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Day before yesterday on my way to convocation ceremony of our under graduate students, inside school bus I was having a casual conversation with one of the brilliant student I taught in foundation. I asked him what are his plans. He said he is continuing in Bangalore and already has many freelance works in his hand. But what he continued to say about Srishti spoke volumes about the institute and the way it is conceived and built by its brilliant and visionary founder Dr. Geetha Narayanan.
He said " Narendran, you know yesterday we were having a conversation among us that how much have we transformed in the last four years. What all diverse courses, skill sets , teachers and experience that srishti had given to us. It is brilliant'.
When I joined Srishti in 2011, I was little skeptical that whether I would be able to continue for a long. For almost six months, I was confused and was wondering what am I doing and where am I headed towards. Teaching six days a week from 9 to 4 and that too diverse courses from art to socio-cultural general studies, I found it becoming very difficult to continue my practice. Only solace I found during that period was the wonderful colleagues I had. But one thing was very clear to me from day one that this place is different from many other institution and the reason is its Director. I realised unlike other art and design institutes, Srishti is a teacher run institute. The detailed and meticulous course planning something very important in Srishti. Geetha Narayanan always made sure that the planning going through a collective and chaotic brain storming processes before it got translated into a course plan that at times are very torturous and tedious. This was a new insight for me. So must be for many other teachers.
The strong pedagog :
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Geetha Narayanan and her abled team of faculty have taught me a lot in pedagogy that I hadn't learned all my years in teaching before. Application of intricate Tools, technique, methods, processes and marathon collective brain storming sessions even for designing a five day course amazed me in the beginning. Many times I felt when will all these procedures end so that I can be normal again and get back to my routine. But it taught me and many other faculty like me, the importance to preparing courses with profound rationalisation and reasoning for every act in the class room, so that teacher is never looked down upon by the students in this era of information over flow and digital technology. Also students derive the best of not only from the individual faculty but also from a collective wisdom. Every year almost two months this process continued unabatedly.
Disruptions as pedagogical tool :
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One thing remained permanent in Srishti curriculum is the constant disruptions Geetha had deliberately brought upon to it every year. For her, her schools curriculum has to keep up not only with time but also at the cutting edge. She used disruptions as an important pedagogical tool to bring about that 'continues change' into Srishti curriculum. However brilliant they may be but no course or method ever remained same in Srishti for more than a year or two years at the maximum. Whenever she went abroad, I used to joke with my friends that "ok let us be ready for the next change of approach and method in course structure". In fact it was not a joke, she would always consult so many cutting edge academics around world during her every trip so that she can bring about those necessary changes in curriculum to keep up with time. During these years with Srishti, I never found her ever scared of experimenting and risk taking when it comes to academics. Many times, I felt that she had become the victim of these risks she took in her profession.
But it had contributed immensely for the reputation of the institute. In the age of propaganda and marketing, within a very short span of few years if Srishti has become an important institution with a very limited marketing, all credit goes to the importance given to this academic process.
Inter disciplinary/ trans-disciplinary and multi disciplinary in one place
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This is something I found unbelievable that is being practiced in Srishti curriculum. The way Geetha Narayanan has been able to bring about this visionary idea in curriculum structure still remains to be far fetched idea in Indian context. Although due to university structure, some stifling is in place now, but by giving the large choice to students to select their courses from a wide spectrum of courses that are inter disciplinary/trans-disciplinary and multi disciplinary in one place under one domain still amazes me as a teacher. Although it makes the life of a teacher very difficult, but this complex structure of exponential learning (where students from different classes, navigating though different courses sharing their learning from those different classes to others through collaboration and participation, making learning in an exponential mode) certainly a revolutionary act. The importance of this moving away from the modernist model of media/material learning existed in (Bauhaus/ulm model ) NID and IDC to this post modernist model way back in 2006 or before, was recognised in 2014 when the world design council declared "lateral design thinking" as the top of the pyramid approach in creative learning for the industry.
Transforming the rigid design process into narrative to humanise the design process :
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Although Geetha Narayanan had kept the art always in front of design along with technology ( both are unique to Srishti till couple of year ago), the re-imagination of course structure four years back was another mile stone in her visionary act. Although narrative is a pass in art for a long time, but the implementation of narrative structure to srishti design curriculum to humanise design practice from its pure process centric approach was an act unparalleled in design curriculum across world. This radical move still hasn't been comprehended in its fullest by most faculty (including me), but the way it is implemented with service design tools made it an unblemished act of revolutionary transformation in art and design teaching/learning.
Although many of us (including students ) complain in our corridor talks about the ambiguity brought in by these changes , but considering every change takes its own sweet time to manifest and understood, the art and design profession will be a different story couple of years down the lane in market and in practice.
Labs and studios : the idea of core and peripheral teaching and learning.
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Another revolutionary act by Geetha narayanan in art and design teaching and learning emerge from her conceptualisation of labs and residencies as an important peripheral influence on core teaching and learning. There are more than six independent practices flourishing in srishti as an optional guiding principles for students such as gender activism, sufism, oral history, experimental media arts, public art and industrial interphase. These are some of those chosen few creative practices to exert that peripheral inertia needed to look beyond the usual, the practice of lateral learning.
Other reformations in art and design learning.
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Other important contributions she brought in the curriculum is the idea of contextual learning. This important step of humanising practice for its contextual location and articulation than its mere need based process response is another major step in art and design pedagogic reformation. Next one is the emphasis in the study of humanities. The compulsory learning of history and theory through out their course years is helping the students in a big way to rationalise their decisions with appropriate vocabulary and contextualisation, some thing very important in this age of communication.
These are only a few of her accomplishments as a visionary leader in art and design practice. There are many more and much bigger things she has accomplished in her journey of building a 10 student institute into 1200 students ug to doctoral studies institute with six schools under it and enabling students in various streams of creative practices. One of the other most important contributions from her to Indian art and design education is the assessment system she has developed in Srishti. In Srishti, a student is not only evaluated for the process or outcome, but also assessed for dimensions of practice and studio habit, an well rounded assessment system, something still unheard of in Indian education system.
Yesterday during the convocation ceremony when every one got up on their feet to thank her, I saw the teacher and leader standing among the crowd; a frame I saw many times during our course planning and she was leading the pedagogic process, a teacher’s forte. As a person, I do not know much about her. During all these years, I only had a few personal interactions with her that too I may be able to count on my fingers. But as a leader who doesn’t bow down at brink of collapse, a teacher uncompromising, a visionary who is transforming Indian art and design curriculum and its focus is certainly evident with her strong presence in Srishti. Other day as one of my friend pointed out how she has transformed the design teaching otherwise historically a male bastion into female profession by preserving Srishti teaching community a 90% female force. He further joked that by letting go every year a 20% female faculty and recruiting another 20% new female faculty, she also has forced other design institutes of this country to become a female centric institute 
I am sure, in the years to come we can expect many more radical transformative initiative from her and her able core team of faculty that are firmly in place now. Like those students who are taking great pride in their growth validates that they value and acknowledge her transformative visionary acts.
Geetha Narayanan proves the fact that an institution is not its earning capacity or it’s infrastructure but what matters is the leadership, what matters is the vision, what matter is the sanctity of processes and the team they lead.
What matters is the integrity.

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