Water?
Translating Research and Reality into Dialogue Through Design
Collaborator
WforW Foundation
Type
2024-25
Category
Academic Project
Type of Work
Research,
Workshop Design,
Speculative Design
Duration
18 Weeks
What happens when water is no longer easy to offer?
When scarcity, anxiety, and uncertainty make this question heavier than it sounds?
When “Water?” is no longer a beginning but a warning, a hesitation, a memory?
Water? is a transdisciplinary design inquiry that began with a simple yet disquieting question: What does it mean to miss water? Set against the backdrop of post-disaster Wayanad, a region where rain once symbolized abundance but now evokes anxiety, this project interrogates water, not merely as a resource but as a symbol of vulnerability, silence, and systemic neglect.
Prologue
Water? is my final-year academic project, developed in collaboration with the WforW Foundation and Woder, where my role as a research fellow aligned with my design inquiry. Beginning with an assumption about emerging water anxiety in post-disaster contexts, I examined this through focused research, including a short but intensive visit to Chooralmala, Wayanad, after the 2023 landslide. The insights gathered became the foundation for a design response that questions the man-made conditions shaping our relationship with water. Water? aims to provoke reflection, especially among young minds, encouraging them to think critically about environmental responsibility and imagine futures where we nurture nature rather than wait for its consequences.
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Due to ongoing commitments, the detailed research and outcomes of this project are currently under NDA. As much as I would love to share the full depth of the work, I am bound by partial rights and confidentiality agreements. If you are interested in understanding the project more closely, please feel free to reach out — I’d be happy to discuss it in detail in the right setting.