VizChitra 2025: India's first community-driven Data Visualization conference

“Draw Your Data” is an imersive, hands-on workshop inspired by the Dear Data project by Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec. In this 2 hour session, participants will record data based on a choosen theme like apps on your phone, favourite songs, closest connections, etc. and then draw it out using different elements, colors, creating a personalized drawing of their data. Here is how it can look like-

• Data Potrait
• Favourite apps on my phone

The workshop begins with a 30-minute guided introduction on how to observe and collect simple personal data points like mood, routines, habits, or preferences, and how to represent these through shapes, lines, colors, and even text.

To kick-start, we will give participants 3-4 themes to pick from, ideas on what kind of shapes, elements they can use to figure-out patterns, if any from their own data drawings.

Key takeaways:

• By the end of the session, each participant will have their own unique data drawing reflecting some pattern or an abstract art representing their day to day or their own personal self.

• Hand-drawing your data visualization helps you free yourself from constraints of a two dimension graph or digital tools and lets you add details, layers, and context as you want to. This freedom also organically prompts the participants to address the question - what do we want to find, and that helps in picking the right elements making the process both intentional and fun.

Audience: This workshop is for anyone curious about their own self, enjoys collecting small data, noting down details, and enjoys using pen, paper, and colors. No sketching skills required.}

About me: Hey, I am Ankita Mathur, a senior product manager at Clari’s data platform team. Over the years, I’ve worked on data projects across the spectrum - with government of India to valley-based startups like Atlan, Sundial, now Clari. Somewhere along the way, I got drawn towards the art and skill of storytelling: with data and without it, both. You can find some of my data art here, and some of my writing here.