VizChitra 2025

{Describe your talk/session in 2-3 paragraphs}

How can we talk about difficult topics in a community space using data? The world is increasingly turning intolerant to openly discussing topics of social concern; religion, language, culture, politics, body politics, environment, and many more that need urgent intervention. Young people are often reluctant to publicly voice opinion/dissent due to structural and institutional constraints, the immersive presence of digital media, lack of public starter spaces around such topics and a cultural vacuum contemporary education often leaves them with.

The talk is based on the experience from classroom projects at IIT Hyderabad, where students are encouraged to critically look at immediate community to create experimental spaces for voicing concerns using physical, generative, participatory data collection methods.

The medium is not new, designers and data artists have used this method as public humanities interface and a medium for activism on several occasions. They also share common grounds with concepts from Pluriversal design, Participatory design and Data Humanism in its approach and spirit. The relevance of such community approaches to data collection in physical spaces is the core of the proposed talk.

• Can it be trigger points for conversations in our silent corners?
• Can they build collective spaces to bring stories together?

*Data spahere translates to Data + Public sphere

{Mention 1-2 takeaways from your session}

• Creating community data experiences and spaces around topics of social concern
• Improving data literacy and humanizing data in public sphere
• The role of designers in creating experiences and spaces around data in Indian contexts

{Who is the audience for your talk/session?}

The talk is for anyone who is interested in the diversity of data forms and the challenges that comes with creating such experiences.

{Add your bio, including work place name and your job role}

Seema Krishnakumar, an Assistant Professor at the Department of Design at IIT Hyderabad. Currently teaches courses in Communication and Interaction Design. Earlier she worked with DJ Academy of Design, Kerala State Institute of Design, and National Institute of Design as an academic. She was instrumental in setting up and starting activities at Kerala State Institute of Design. She holds a Bachelors in Civil Engineering from Cochin University and Masters in Communication Design from Pratt Institute, New York. She is a recipient of Fulbright – Nehru Master’s Fellowship for Leadership Development, USIEF for 2009 – 2011.