Gaurav Sikka
Finalist for the GSA Sustainability Prize.
Forever curious. Forever learning.
I am a Generalist (now with service design skills), trying my best to address the core needs of all people, all non-humans, and all planet.
My practice is not about finding a solution or solving problems but creating mediums through which conflicting views and power relations can be discussed and renegotiated.
Contact
A day in the life of an Ecological Designer
There is no Planet B
Current mainstream design practice overlooks the planet’s needs, especially while designing digital services/products. I looked into the people behind these services/products and dubbed them ‘Changemakers‘. These changemakers have tremendous potential but still feel they do not have the right tools or power to incorporate these needs into their process.
For design to contribute to society’s capacity to make these shifts to alternative systems, it needs to empower changemakers to be more systems-conscious and facilitate the transition.
My proposal is a graphically illustrated cartoon booklet called ‘A day in the life of an Ecological Designer’, a satirical take on the systemic issues plaguing the current mainstream design practice. Through this book, I wish to address the first step towards transition – raising awareness but via humour. I wanted to create a medium through which I challenge conflicting views and power relations while enabling renegotiation.
Project Links
Fostering safe space for victims/survivors reporting sexual crimes
Making the decision to report a sexual crime is objectively difficult. After a sexual assault, people often feel traumatised, vulnerable, and alone. They may also be experiencing physical pain and vulnerability. The concept of reporting what happened to the police can feel overwhelming, scary, or be the last thing on their minds. It is a time when self-care and connecting with loved ones deserve to be top of mind. While we found a lot of resources and organisations made to support the victims in such a situation but navigating from organisation to organisation can leave people feeling trapped in a dark tunnel of confusing information and unsure of how to move forwards. For this reason, our group looked into an opportunity for Police Scotland to foster safe space for those reporting sexual crimes. Our service proposal does this through a trauma-informed design approach and through the lens of care.
Our proposal was to design interventions at specific parts of the process we created an ecosystem of care that promotes transparency, agency, consent, emotional care, and eventually creates a safe space for victims/survivors.
Visions of the Futures
This essay came into being while studying the Anthropocene and the idea that it is characterised by human beings as the dominant force on the planet, shaping the natural environment to the point of irreversible damage and how technology can act as a tool for better world-making through the lens of ‘Metaverse’. This essay is an exploration of the collective visions of our future. Through a series of AI generated art, it explores if humans have become the new monsters, what happens when their dominance is removed? Literature and science fiction has always questioned these notions by imagining alternative worlds in which humans are no longer the dominant species. This essay discusses these different perspectives to imagine a world from the disaster we are making now.
