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

Session Description
India is forever changing - in fast, dramatic ways and in slow, almost imperceptible ways. But what might it be like to step back and look at these changes from above? This talk presents a sequence of visual stories from Mapping Stories - India (www.instagram.com/mapping.stories), an initiative that photographs the evolving face of the nation through satellite imagery and geo-spatial data. From above, patterns start to surface - revealing transitions that tend to go unnoticed from the ground.

As opposed to tool or technique, this talk focuses on the way this new perspective enables us to better understand India and express change. Whether urban expansion, environmental changes, human effects, or cultural leaves, these stories are place-based but globally applicable. All of them are meant to be visually compelling, understandable, and rememberable - translating space data into something emotional, instinctual, and insightful.

Key Takeaways

1. Discover how satellite imagery and open-source spatial data can be transformed into impactful, relatable narratives.
2. Learn how visual storytelling can bridge the gap between scientific data and public engagement.

Target audience
General audiences, students, planners, journalists, storytellers, or anyone curious about the ways we can see and make sense of the changing world around us.

Speaker Details
I’m an architect and urban planner, and the founder of Mapping Stories – India, a platform that tells visual stories of change using satellite imagery and spatial data. I collaborate with various agencies to craft compelling visual narratives and make complex geospatial insights understandable for wider audiences. With a love for visuals, storyboarding, and cinematic thinking, I try to bring a fresh perspective to how we see and understand India from above.