Residents of Gulbarga Fort
How can design thinking employ empathy and compassion to provide an equal voice and platform to the multiple stakeholders to relook at this age-old problem with cultural and historical significance?
Solo Project
Adobe Creative Suite, Procreate App
Design Thinking
User Research
Visual Design
The problem
With the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) taking control of the Gulbarga Fort, families who have resided within the Fort walls for many generations are now being officially termed as ‘encroachers’ and facing hostility by the locals of Gulbarga. Plans for their evacuation are in progress.
How can design employ empathy to provide an equal voice and platform to multiple stakeholders in order to relook at an age-old problem with cultural and historical significance?
(This project was executed from Srishti Institute of Art, Design, and Technology in collaboration with UNESCO Chair in Culture, Habitat, and Sustainable Development India, Deccan Studies, Team YUVAA, and Aga Khan Trust for Culture.)
The solution
An easy-to-use, visually driven interactive toolkit that requires community participation in order to allow the stakeholders to look at the problem through different lenses.
Introduction
Gulbarga and Gulbarga Fort
This project is situated in Gulbarga (Kalaburagi) - one of the important historic cities in the Dhakan region and 625km from Bangalore. This region has a rich diversity of cultures influenced by architecture, language, crafts, social movements, culinary practice, syncretic philosophy and several other local traditions that distinguish it from its surrounding region.
One of Gulbarga's most famous monuments is the Gulbarga Fort. Built in 1347, the Fort stands strong to this day. Within the Fort area lies the Jamia (also called Jami/Jama) Masjid - a mosque built in a unique Indo-Persian style of architecture, with elegant domes and arched columns that display craftsmanship and a deep understanding of light and sound. Stories of the Fort, its cannons, and the Jamia Masjid provide tourists, pilgrims and travellers with many stories to take back with them.
Research
Context of the project
Within the Gulbarga Fort walls exists a settlement with more than 200 families, many of whom have lived there for more than three generations.
But ever since the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), a government agency responsible for the conservation and preservation of cultural monuments in the country, recently gained control of the Fort, the residents have been termed as 'encroachers' and there have been multiple attempts to evict them away from the Fort.
Due to this stance by the ASI, there has been extensive media coverage about this issue, with various articles and reports turning the Gulbarga locals' mindsets against these residents. Many of the Gulbarga locals now want these 'encroachers' evicted, as they believe their presence inside the Fort taints its image, thereby repelling tourists and pilgrims alike and taking away any opportunity for the government to intervene and beautify the Fort.
Initial inquiry
After some initial research, I wanted to explore the questions:
→ What relationship do the residents share with the Fort?
→ How does the Fort impact their lives?
→ How can design thinking bring out this relationship to the authorities and the general public of Gulbarga?
I then spoke with multiple residents of the Fort (men, women and children) and also some of the local public of Gulbarga to understand their perspectives.
The journey led me to multiple realizations:
→ The situation was far too complex to solve in a matter of weeks.
→ The situation has been primarily viewed through social, religious and political lenses.
→ Not all stakeholders have equal voice and influence.
→ As a designer and outsider, I have no standing or stake in this situation, so it is not my place to take sides, no matter how tempting it may be.
→ It is in my power to initiate a dialogue between the stakeholders through empathy rather than anger and hate.
Final inquiry:
How can design employ empathy and compassion to provide an equal voice and platform to the multiple stakeholders to relook at this age-old problem with cultural and historical significance?
Final design
The toolkit
An easy-to-use, visually driven interactive toolkit that requires community participation to allow the stakeholders to relook at the situation through different lenses.
Target audience/Stakeholders:
→ Residents of the Fort
→ Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) - Fort Authorities
→ Locals of Gulbarga who live outside the walls of the Fort
Why toolkit
The project aimed to bring the stakeholders together in one place and initiate a dialogue through empathy rather than past conflicts.
Inspired by various successful case studies by IDEO, I believe that the toolkit, if conducted properly, effectively brings forward a community's voice through its visions, stories, aspirations, and grievances. An approach like this had not been tried before and could help the stakeholders understand each other's perspectives in a human-centred way.
How to use the toolkit
The toolkit includes tasks related to writing, highlighting and plotting that each of the stakeholders needs to conduct in the presence of the others. Some tasks need to be done individually, while others need to be done by all three simultaneously.
Apart from the stakeholders, there must be one facilitator of the toolkit who has no stake in this matter. The toolkit will provide the facilitator with a booklet that highlights the rules, guidelines, aim, and prompts to ensure that each task is conducted appropriately. Each stakeholder is colour-coded. Residents of the Fort being blue, ASI being red and the locals of Gulbarga being green.
The activities cover stakeholder perspectives through 6 lenses:
→ Home - What does the idea of home mean to the residents of the Fort? Can it be quantified in objects, or does it include feelings towards the Fort, masjid and community? Is this idea different for the other locals of Gulbarga and ASI, or is home looked at similarly?
→ Memories - The residents' families have lived in the Fort for more than three generations. How can memories highlight aspects of their attachment towards the place to be relatable to the other stakeholders? How do the other stakeholders remember the Fort back in the day? Is their current perspective being skewed by socio-political factors?
→ Place - The residents of the Fort have lived there all their life? Can the other stakeholders look at their perspectives, knowledge, and understanding of the space in a new and positive manner?
→ Aspirations - What do the stakeholders aspire for in the future of the Fort? Does everyone have similar visions? No matter the differences or similarities, can this start a different dialogue regarding the plan of action for the future? Can the plan be inclusive of these diverse perspectives?
→ Attention - Which areas of the monument need immediate attention and intervention? Do the residents and ASI have different perspectives? Can there be potential for collaboration? Can the residents be looked at as caretakers of the monument?
→ Monument - How do the locals of Gulbarga perceive other significant monuments in the city? What appeals to them about each monument? Is it the architecture, philosophy and purpose, history or anything else? Can different monuments have different identities and appeals?
Questions I asked myself throughout the project:
→ What biases do I bring in?
→ What is my role as a designer when bringing possible interventions to the table?
→ Must I take sides in such a situation?
→ How much truth is in anyone’s stories? How can my project break away from the agendas of the different stakeholders?
→ How can I filter all the information in terms of relevance?
→ Multiple residents of the Fort wished for their children to move out and live better lives. There were also incidents of the residents causing some damage to the protected monument. A lot of what the ASI is trying to do makes sense for the protection of the Fort. How can I get my project to hold a neutral stance?
Outcome
This project did not come to fruition as I travelled back to Bangalore for the final assessment and graduation thesis show. Taking the project forward required funding for the toolkit production, translation into Hindi, Urdu and Kannada languages, and various other expenses. This project remains a concept until then.
