Chitrakatha 2019

Event Design Management

Client

Role

Core Team Member
Manager, Promotions

Year

2019

Punching above our weight.
Into a mere four tender years of it's inception, National Institute of Design Andhra Pradesh successfully celebrated it's first international student design festival, hosting the 19th edition of Chitrakatha.

Chitrakatha is a bi-annual international student design festival that celebrates storytelling and the design process and promotes alternative media and narratives. Over the 12 years and 7 editions, it has grown to become a testament to NID’s focus on a process-driven unlearning culture, birthing several creative concepts, activities, events, and collaborations.

In 2019, the National Institute of Design, Andhra Pradesh hosted Chitrakatha for the first time under the leadership of Sekhar Mukherjee. This edition saw the experimental jump from an animation and comics festival to incorporate several other facets of design.

The core team was formed as a first step in the event, a good 5 months before the event. Our primary responsibilities were:

To coordinate with the festival director in regards to the vision of the event.
To plan out the schedule and required sub systems.
To facilitate a pipeline with various participating bodies.
To collaborate with teams and members to resolve issues and maintain a smooth plan of action.
Use prior localized experience of the region for ease of operations.

A series of innumerable blurry meetings, brainstorms, pitch, and feedback sessions later, a number of teams were decided upon.

A specifically new team was put together to keep waste production in check, to prevent the reduce need for post-event cleanups, otherwise undertaken by staff of the college.

The event brought a diverse group of people together creating opportunities for learning and co-creation.

Master craftsman Kaunsar Shah crafting paper mache souvenirs.

Conscious effort was taken to curb use of any plastic/ flex material for banners/ souvenirs. Certificates, trophies, goodie bags, little trinkets and souvenirs, were all handcrafted and hand painted with material like paper, wood, cloth and MDF.

All of the major events excluding the individual workshops, design talks and demonstrations were planned around the open courtyard space in lines of the free, inclusive and participatory nature of the festival.

Images Captured by:

Priyankar Roy
Anoop AL
Rahul Pal
Nimal Matthew
Adhityan Ravichandran