Graduate Showcase Highlights: Devika Sharma MA Service Design
- Written byPost-Grad Community
- Published date 28 July 2021
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Written by Devika Sharma, MA Service Design, London College of Communication
Q. Could you tell me about yourself and where you're based? And a little about your work in this year's Graduate Showcase?
A. I'm Devika Sharma, and I'm on the MA Service Design programme. I'm currently based in Mumbai, India.
The Service Design course is currently working on major individual 6 month-long projects that will be the centre of our showcase when we display our work later in the year. The work that I'm personally doing is with mental health, with this nonprofit Turkish-American foundation.
A colleague and I worked with them as they were delivering and creating a toolkit for generous listening. So they're very much into understanding if listening is a powerful tool for connecting people together, which I found very interesting because listening seems like a very simple act. But I think it also fosters a genuine connection between people. So I'm looking at that as a tool that can be deployed to build mental health resilience post-pandemic.
This stems from a very personal experience, I think all of us have, at some point during the pandemic, felt either upset or down, or there's this term that's newly coined called languishing, which is this aspect of feeling stagnant in our lives.
All of the work that we do on Service Design revolves around solving problems that exist around us, whether that's sustainability and the climate crisis, or even inequality that may exist in London. So it's very much about relevant issues and how design has the power and the role to help in these cases.
Q. It's so interesting that your project is around those themes, it sounds very reflective of the year. How have you found the process of producing your work under these unusual circumstances?
A. On my course I've realised that reflection as a designer is a very key aspect of your practice, and really understanding what works for you and what doesn't, what your strengths are and your weaknesses, and obviously, it helps you move forward.
The course has been quite blended for me because I was in London only for the initial few months of the programme. But there was also a lockdown, so you couldn't go as much into LCC. And then after that, I've been in India ever since. I think a major shout-out to the faculty and the cohort is important. It's incredible how I haven't felt like my education is lacking in any way. I think all of us have just worked together with so much empathy because everyone is on the same boat. It's been so reinforcing. On days that somebody feels demotivated or feels things are getting harder, there's always somebody there to help and listen to you.
Q. Could you tell us a little more about your work with Camden Council and any challenges you had to overcome in working on your projects this year?
A. We were looking at the regeneration of an area within Camden Council in a post-pandemic world. The area is facing shop closures and difficulties in access to space, especially temporary space use. There was so much we were able to learn and understand when speaking to shopkeepers and residents in the local area. This was a challenge as the fieldwork was so different, there are fewer people on the roads to talk to.
I think everyone is trying to collaboratively move forward to a new normal, which is better than what we left behind. That was something we considered with other projects too. Even if we were trying to tackle a brief, which has not much to do with the pandemic, we realised you cannot work in isolation anymore. It's been over a year since the COVID-19 pandemic hit us and somehow that problem does permeate in every issue that we look into. I think the pandemic is in every bit of work we do currently, for sure.
Q. What are your post-graduation plans?
A. I am actually due to start my PhD at Loughborough in January, I'm really excited for that. My PhD is essentially the intersection of design and politics. So it looks at how different methods of design activism facilitate public participation. The idea that activism can be more democratised and involve the masses.
Devika's work will be uploaded to the Graduate Showcase later in the year! ... Watch out for the launch date!
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