Archana Shekara
The present moment is an opportunity to grasp our heartbeat, hear beauty and remind us that we are alive. I am curious and question everyday patterns and gestures, and have learned to pause…self-reflect, be grateful for all that has transpired to become reality — Joy, Happiness, Contentment and Peace. As an Indian American and seen as a model minority, I am aware of my many privileges, but as a person of color, I recognize the biases and marginalization by how my adopted country has labeled and categorized me. The struggles with how everyday gazes positions me as the other, constant code switching validating my intersectional identity and experiences has made me a survivor. I seek solidarity with communities to be the change.
Designer as a catalyst — I perceive design as a philosophy of life where designers must empathize with and respect the diverse multicultural communities of the people we serve. My designs are shaped by lived experiences, and social engagements in community spaces to build understanding, acceptance, and respect. My medium for creative expression varies greatly but includes the following: curating immersive participatory experiences, for example, food that I prepare to share with others; interactive installations using mixed and various emerging digital media which evoke multi-sensory responses. In all of these, I wish to highlight invisible norms connecting audiences with themselves, the community, and me.
POLISHED | UNPOLISHED
Guru Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra, Virama Pratyaya Abhyasa Purvah Samskara Shesha Anyah, (1:18) invocates deep reflective pauses to renourish our bodies and mind. I seek solidarity, kindness, understanding, allyship and grace. I have been exploring the ritual of making and serving food through narratives based on my cultural heritage, memory, and upbringing. Creating a welcoming space to gather groups of friends or strangers around the table to share a meal is rewarding to me. I perceive this space as organic, vibrant, and sacred. Gestures, pauses, conversations, laughter, and slurps — these sensual experiences are fascinating and blissful.
This social practice artwork invites the general public to eat Ganji, a simple rice dish, as prepared by the artist. Through the duration of the simple meal, participants will consider the evolution of polished and unpolished rice in South Asian culture and be asked to share their thoughts on privilege, colorism and socio-economic disparities. Participants will ultimately write statements on note cards based on their conversations and experience. Their written language and conversations during the meal will be documented and become part of the installation project (as notecards will be added into the design installation).
Archana Shekara is an Indian American designer, researcher, creative director, and educator. She is a Professor of Graphic Design, Co-Director of Ethnic Studies Program, and Creative Director of Design Streak Studio, a research based social innovation lab focusing on human-centered service design at Illinois State University. She serves as the Coordinator of the Graphic Design partnership with Wonsook Kim School of Art and Tianhua College of Art + Design at Shanghai Normal University.
Shekara has twenty-six years of professional experience designing for diverse industry clients. She uses design as a tool to build cross-cultural understanding, humility, acceptance, and respect. As a socio-cultural researcher and designer, she investigates transnational identity by understanding racial equity through a brown lens, and creates cultural awareness using auto-ethnographic narratives. Her medium for creative expression takes on various forms such as type design, curating immersive participatory experiences, interactive installations using mixed and various emerging digital media which evoke multi-sensory responses. Shekara’s scholarship in teaching includes design pedagogy related to cross-cultural awareness and identity, social justice, and community engagement. Shekara’s innovative teaching methodologies and research have been featured in peer-reviewed national and international academic and professional publications, and conferences including Association Typographique Internationale (AtypI), Typography Day, Digitally Engaged Learning (DEL), MODE Summit, Electronic Visualization and the Arts (EVA) London, Society of Experiential Design (SEGD), AIGA Design Educators Conference (DEC), College Art Association (CAA), Southeastern College Art Conference (SECAC, 2022) and UCDA Design Educators Summit. In addition, Shekara was accepted to participate in DesignInquiry, an international peer-reviewed organization for experimental graphic design research and a finalist for the World After Poster series, and book hosted by Poster Territory and DMJ Studio.
Shekara has been invited to peer-review several graphic design tenure and promotion dossiers from various universities, conferences, and book publications. She has served as a graduate thesis advisor for Heron School of Art and Design at Indianapolis. Shekara conducts community building workshops based on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and facilitates Indian cultural training for various non-for-profit organizations in the local community. She serves on the President’s Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Council at Illinois State University and chairs the Faculty and Staff Recruitment and Retention, and co-chairs Student Recruitment and Retention Sub-Committees advocating systemic change for people from marginalized communities, propagating for inclusive curriculum, and creating safe and brave spaces for the campus community to thrive. She recently started the South Asian Design Educators Alliance to bring South Asian American perspectives into mainstream conversations in design. Shekara received an MFA in Graphic Design from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a BFA in Painting from the State University of New York in New Paltz.