Diversity in us
Brief
Creating awareness about shifting identities today and Xenophobia through Olfactory Interactions.
Design Process
Ethnographic Research
Scent Recognition
Story Boarding
Interaction Design
Lasercutting & Microcontroller Programming
Key Insights & Value
Common smells coded by culture make it possible to deeply connect with each other and find the I in us. In contemporary times, with increased mobility and migration, we often find it difficult to identify with just one place. we connect with all those places we lived in and tend to mingle and make each culture at least a little part of us. We also connect with these smells which are descriptors of place and culture which now form a part of our own experience and memory. With increased mobility and migration our identity is melange of all the cultures of the places we have lived.
We believe, it is only when we understand and embrace our own diversity would we be able to fight the biases of calling someone ‘Other’, which often results in xenophobia. This idea is converted in to interactive olfactory installation.
Research
The research first attempted to understand how story can be narrated taking city and its evolution. Later we understood that smell are personal association and can be mapped as experience of the city dwellers and their association with various cities which they call home. thus looking at migration as a personal story rather than taking city as central and looking from place’s context.
Based on this insight, Kadambari’s experiences were mapped with each cities she lived and we converted the data which we could obtain from various sources.
The installation tried to invoke nostalgia using smell and key events of the city and then presenting the plurality of those cities’ data understanding it as shared space.
The installation thus hinted on the population who migrate and call these places as their home and these places form their cultural identity. if these places are their home then we ought to question the violence that is often seen with migration in cities calling these people other.
Making
Design
