Information Arts and Information Design Practices
As a practitioner of Information Arts & Design, with a background in sociology, my practice stems from a place that combines research with art and design to form unique tools for communication. Throughout my practice such has been fruitfully achieved via illustrations & infographics, be it digital or physical. It is often said, “an image speaks more than a thousand words”; I believe this to be a foundational philosophical idea in my practice, which intends to express via creating visuals through illustrative mediums and techniques. They allow for complex narratives, concepts and experiences to be expressed without limiting or restricting them with words, reaching diverse audiences via visualisation of research, conversations, themes and ideas. I further believe visuals allow for a space with lesser biases and provides scope for multifaceted interpretations, which was channelled into the infographics creation process in the portfolio. However, I do not overlook the words. Research and data are crucial in solidifying and validating themes, connecting them with larger social contexts, allowing for creation of empathetic and evocative art. The entire purpose of my practice is to explore and understand unique ways to represent varying forms of research (primary, secondary, observations, conversations) and experiences (of self and others) through creative mediums. My practice and creation process intends to remain research-driven, as positioning one’s work is important when one is working towards awareness and representing voices of others, the self, and concepts, be it individually or collectively within teams, which became evident in the collaborative portfolio.
Understanding the “from” and "towards” for my practice and line of inquiry is important, as it forms the essence of the lens and direction through which all the selected works are created and presented. With a background in sociology, my practice stems from the goal of combining research with art and design, and finding ways to visually present diverse forms of information and narratives. My hope is to build towards a practice aimed at such data visualisation through illustrations becoming the crucial tools of communication, as I believe they help convey various nuances that are often difficult to convey in words. The pieces I have chosen for my portfolio stem from three kinds of research – personal observation, surveys & interviews, as well as secondary research. The aim is for an illustrative visual representation of that research in the outputs created as a practitioner of Information Arts and Information Design Practices. However, my process has always been fueled by emotions and experiences of empathy and explorations in understanding these diverse narratives. They allowed me to push further to understand nuances of things that I was researching or observing, adding layers of depth to both the research and final outputs.
