Speakers
This talk will address how design was used as a mechanism to frame independent India’s cultural prowess by the state and various cultural actors in the 1950s, while simultaneously being used as a vehicle for social and economic development by a range of stakeholders, including commercial and heritage organisations. Here the conflict between the past and present played out, unfolding recurrent dilemmas of presenting heritage in relation to modernity.
This talk is part of the series Design History Now, a series exploring design histories that connect to our contemporary moment. The series brings together a selection of speakers who engage with design as a social, political and ecological agent, and consider how design is in turn shaped by these forces. The intention is to offer a vision of design history that is deeply critical in its approach, and in tune with its contemporary relevance and purpose.
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Hero Image: A group of people watch the inaugural television programme of All India Radio on a set installed at a community centre, New Delhi.
Copyright: National Archive, London
Speakers
Megha Rajguru
Megha Rajguru is a Principal Lecturer and Subject Lead for History of Art and Design at University of Brighton, UK, and is the Co-Director of the Centre for Design History at Brighton. Her research is in South Asian design history, material and visual culture. She has recently co-edited Design and Modernity in Asia: National Identity and Transnational Exchange 1945-1990 (Bloomsbury, 2022) and has published in the Journal of Design History, Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes, Journal of Museum Ethnography and the Journal of Visual Arts Practice.
Sarita Sundar
Sarita Sundar is a Designer and Design Historian. Her practice and research spans heritage studies, popular and visual culture, and design theory. At Hanno, her heritage interpretation and design consultancy, she combines 30+ years of working with brand design and strategy with her academic training in museum studies. Over the years, she has engaged in critical enquiries into how culture engages with the visual, ranging from research into Indian vernacular typography (‘Indians don’t like White Space, 2016) to studies of intangible culture in performance practices (The Goddess and her Lieutenant: objects systems at a village festival, 2016 through an India Foundation for the Arts Grant). Her research into the cultural history of the seat in India culminated into a book: ‘From the Frugal to the Ornate: Stories of the Seat in India’. During her 2022-2023 Fulbright Teaching and Research Fellowship she researched the resistances to modernism in Indian and American design histories.
