In the past month, Srishti has taught me to think and look beyond what is visible to the naked eye. From the basics of what it takes to be a good designer Srishti helped me grow in many ways.
Our first assignment was the understanding of the difficulties faced by the Blind. It went from the actual understanding of darkness to realizing how we, the normal people are actually not sensitive to a world beyond what we see, and how the visually impaired are actually more normal than we think. The invitation cards were an initiative to understand the visually impaired. By the time we reached the documentation of our work for two weeks, from t shirts to posters to making N3 blind enabled I realized that understanding anything took more than research or paying attention in class. It was about getting into the project to understand it, to empathize with the matter we are tackling.
Each project took a certain amount of interaction with my course mates. Sharing ideas, manipulating them and further executing them took time, as we had to learn to collaborate. We had to first understand the system, look at each aspect of the matter to actually figure out what the need was, the aspects being the target group, need requirements etc.
After that we analyzed the different ways to understand the system, which was when we realized that there was more to the topic we were handling than we initially thought. My outlook towards all the visually impaired changed drastically after just two weeks of the course. I had always sympathized with them. Always against the ill treatment of the handicapped, I hadn't realized that I had infact sidelined the status of the visually impaired just by feeling sorry for them. They were as much a part of the normal as we were a part of the handicapped. As the society we had failed to notice the actual hardships faced by them. What's the use of giving a discount on clothes or food to them? They don't see how their vision impairment is a setback to get a Zara or Vero Moda dress, they do not see how by getting a discount on a pack of Choco actually helps them in anyway except making people so aware of their disability that they are treated differently- and not in a good way.
So we need to think different, be different. They aren't the ones at a loss due to their disability. Its us who lose the sense of humanity and empathy even after having all our senses intact. We ignore what we dont see. But in the process we miss out on much more than them. They aren't disabled, they aren't to be felt sorry for, for their world is much larger than what we can see.
Our first assignment was the understanding of the difficulties faced by the Blind. It went from the actual understanding of darkness to realizing how we, the normal people are actually not sensitive to a world beyond what we see, and how the visually impaired are actually more normal than we think. The invitation cards were an initiative to understand the visually impaired. By the time we reached the documentation of our work for two weeks, from t shirts to posters to making N3 blind enabled I realized that understanding anything took more than research or paying attention in class. It was about getting into the project to understand it, to empathize with the matter we are tackling.
Each project took a certain amount of interaction with my course mates. Sharing ideas, manipulating them and further executing them took time, as we had to learn to collaborate. We had to first understand the system, look at each aspect of the matter to actually figure out what the need was, the aspects being the target group, need requirements etc.
After that we analyzed the different ways to understand the system, which was when we realized that there was more to the topic we were handling than we initially thought. My outlook towards all the visually impaired changed drastically after just two weeks of the course. I had always sympathized with them. Always against the ill treatment of the handicapped, I hadn't realized that I had infact sidelined the status of the visually impaired just by feeling sorry for them. They were as much a part of the normal as we were a part of the handicapped. As the society we had failed to notice the actual hardships faced by them. What's the use of giving a discount on clothes or food to them? They don't see how their vision impairment is a setback to get a Zara or Vero Moda dress, they do not see how by getting a discount on a pack of Choco actually helps them in anyway except making people so aware of their disability that they are treated differently- and not in a good way.
So we need to think different, be different. They aren't the ones at a loss due to their disability. Its us who lose the sense of humanity and empathy even after having all our senses intact. We ignore what we dont see. But in the process we miss out on much more than them. They aren't disabled, they aren't to be felt sorry for, for their world is much larger than what we can see.
No comments:
Post a Comment