justice pending

Product

Art therapy and fun

We went to the Cheshire Ladies Old Age Home and we all witnessed results which were unexpected. The kind of enthusiasm and active participation in the activities were much more than expected.

I framed my art activities in which we could have self-reflection through art.

The treasure tower: The concept of treasure tower was based on a Buddhist verse. When Gautama Buddha gave his last verse, a treasure tower emerged from the floating in the space; it had all the treasures inside it, diamonds, pearls, lapis lazuli, gold, silver and all kinds of treasures were there. Their quantities were innumerable. The tower is said to be a reflection of our own self. We all have all the treasures within. We don’t need to seek them outside ourselves; they are all present within our own five foot body.

The working: I asked them to make how your treasure tower will look like. The material and the medium of the exercise were supposed to be in 3D. Hence, I prepared different flower crafts. They were just supposed to place them on A1 size sheets and we pasted it according to their instructions they gave us.

These were the crafts that I made for the treasure tower.


The responses of the people there wer quite enthusiastic. They understood the concept of it. They could relate the 3D objects and make a treasure tower.

Future Perfect

So, i want to be a monk.

Somewhere in seclusion, deep in the cold mountains of nowhere.

DON'T LAUGH Alok

The Indian Recliner [Prototype #2]

Therapeutic Fun

The visit to Cheshire Ladies Old Age Home went far better than planned, in no small part due to enthusiastic participation of its residents. A trip that was supposed to last an hour or two was extended to almost six hours. Every single activity was received with a liveliness most children lack. Of course, we called it a participatory workshop, rather than therapy.

From ear to hand

After the preliminary introductions we dove straight into the first activity: listening to music and translating it into a painting. Once started the ladies were unstoppable, churning out several paintings in a matter of minutes. The glee derived from this simple task was alone sufficient to warrant the four hours of travel.

From ear to heart to tongue

Our next activity was the expression of emotion. We played short clips of music. The inmates then stated the emotion they associated with it and proceeded to portray the feeling through facial expression and sounds. Soon this evolved into a dramatic enactment of every imaginable sentiment; this soon evolved to a display of impersonations and funny faces.

The one, the all

The ladies of Cheshire spoke Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, English, Hindi or some combination thereof; a good portion of time was spent translating and most of it was a melee of words of varying origin. The outstanding exception to this trend was the group singing session. As the ladies sang in unison their backs noticeably straightened, their head an inch higher, their chins angled upward. Pride in community.

From ear to

The quiet listening session was the least appreciated part of the event, probably because sitting quietly and listening fills up far too much of the inmates’ days (speculation). The women of Cheshire seemed relieved when we were ready to move on to the next activity.

Dance, Baby, Dance

Not everyone joined us on the dance floor but everyone was involved. Clapping, hooting and cheering, I couldn’t believe these were the same old sheep I had spied from the front gate on my way in.

After hours of painting, singing and laughing and so much more, we finally had to leave. The grinning faces behind me broke my heart as I remembered the dull mugs I had first peered at. Promising to return, we left.

PRODUCT DESIGN

Prooducts i designed were ; a spillage free mug and an easy to carry jug.

The spillage free mug : it has a plastic sipper rim attached to it from the inside. the rim has small minute holes in it from the inside which helps in drinking without spilling.

The jug : i have seen many old people having trouble in picking up those normal jugs filled with liquid to the brim. They have trouble holding it because of the pressure it puts on their arm. so seeing this I came up with the idea of a jug with the handle in the centre. This would reduce the pressure and now the weight being on both sides of the jug will help in proper pouring.

Self Portrait

At the age of 75 i see myself as a very self reliant granny, with all the comforts and luxuries of life.

Self-Portrait

Seeing the increasing gap between generations, I think this gap is just going to get wider. When I become 75 that is looking 55 years ahead from now, I can totally imagine my-self as an old grumpy lady with a walking stick in hand, sleek glasses and loss of interest in technology because I know that a point will come when life gets too fast for me and I won’t be able to keep up with it.

Spectacle Box

Initial product design:

As one grows old one tends to forget things very easily. I have noticed many senior citizens with two different spectacle boxes. They often forget to take both of them when they are going out which causes a lot of problem later. Taking that into consideration i have designed a spectacle box which can hold two pair of glasses, a pen, medicines and it also has a torch at the base. Both the spectacle covers would have a mark on making it easy for them to know which one they are opening. It would also have a transparent strip on it making it easier for them to view if everything they need is in there.

Drawback:

It can be used only by those people who use sleek spectacles because if the glasses are big then they cant fit in the box. The whole idea of it is to make it fit in the front shirt pocket.

Recliner Production [Day 2]

Logo for the Store for the Senior Citizens

This logo is showing the Devolution of humans with respect to age which is showing that the senior citizen is getting younger. This logo could motivate the senior citizens and empower them and make them feel better and stronger about themselves.
I Have also incorporated the colour coding that is used for the various sections of the store in this logo.

Product

This is a product i designed which is a hybrid of a Shopping Cart and a Wheel Chair. This Product didnt really work since i realised that the senior citizens will have to transfer from one wheel chair to another and so it would be inconvenient.

My Illustrations

A Self Portrait of when i grow up at the age of 75!

An Illustration of a sixty year old retired sports trainer!

Intense concentration!















Messy messy P.O.P
















And then we got hungrrrrry!

Sculpture in Progress ... the ups and downs

So we're in the middle of building our sculpture, and we've learnt so much about P.O.P. disasters in the last couple of days, I think I could write a book on it.
We basically started with a wire base to create the pod, and then started wrapping jute rope through the wire to create some sort of platform to layer the P.O.P on.



This is our cool base on which the sculpture will finally stand.

Recliner Production

Taking off from our 3 ideas discussed in the prototype stage to make our bed recline, we zeroed in on either using an electric car jack and/or the water equilibrium/pump idea as our final mechanism.

After making the prototype of our bed out of wood using the mechanism of the car jack as a lever, we encountered certain problems in the functioning of the bed. The wheel at the side of the bed, connected to the jack, still required considerable amount of manual force to be rotated which cannot be utilized by old people. And this was primarily because wood as a material is heavy and far too flexible and flimsy, compared to metal. So the wood could never really hold the jack together and allow it to offer a smooth transition between 0 to an optimal 75\80 degrees of inclination. In order to overcome this hurdle we decided instead to start with a light metal frame, and replaced the manual car jack with an electric one at a slightly higher cost.

So we started work at a workshop in the city with an access to a welder, lots of scrap metal and power-tools. Immediately, we saw many loopholes appear in our water equilibrium design, though it wasn't exactly impossible to achieve, we decided to shelve it until we finished the other mechanism as we were working against the clock. After about 11 hours of deliberation with the metal frame including some unforeseen re-adjustments and last minute hiccups, we at the end managed to complete the basic frame work including a fully functional electronic reclining mechanism.

GREYING

For our next post please check out Nandita, Koyal or my facebook page for the album "Greying".

Album aim:

This was a photoshoot taken for our old age course.

The idea was to evoke nostalgia for an era long gone.

An era that contained so much simplicity, class and oppulence that today's shiny modern plasticity pales in comparison.

LISTEN

From the time we started discussing it, we wanted to create a very controversial sculpture

for the mere reason that any publicity is good publicity.

The sculptures' audience is ideally an elderly crowd. We discussed the yawni
ng gap between our two generations and the various differences in opinion it causes. So. We therefore created a hand coming out of the earth holding a signboard saying 'Listen'.
To mend broken ties. To empathise. Thats the entire point of our scupture.