Seminar 3 : Presentation and Feedback

23rd August, 2013

Thethird seminar presentation gives an overview of the storybook, the stories, themes and the character sketches. It also exhibits some initial character design explorations. The presentation can be viewed here:



The feedback for this seminar was:

PRESENTATION :

- When describing the plot of the story, talk about the larger scenario and how individual accounts are interlinked.
- The energy dips when the audience is asked to read excerpts from the story, instead they should be read-aloud when presenting.

CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT :

- The characters seem to be at a point of death and resurrection, which gives the story potential to turn the course of events.
- Push the satire and naivety in the tone to create interest.
- Write all the accounts in first person to make the inanimate characters easier to relate to and to give them a personality beyond their basic function.

DESIGN DEVELOPMENT : 
- The project demands a strong hand in illustration which is not demonstrated. Need to draw every day and develop a style suitable for the project.
- Draw the animals from life to get a better judgment of what can be exaggerated and to capture nuances.

CONCERNS :
- Highlight the themes and tighten the connections for the reader. - Meet the writing team before creating newer drafts.

NEXT STEPS:- Create newer drafts of the written content to make it direct and make the message clear.
- Draw every day to develop an illustration style.
- Begin working on layouts.

Design Development - Character Design

Here are some rough sketches and coloured iterations of the first draft of character designs for the storybook.

Concept Development - Meet The Characters

Here are the characters, the witnesses and marginalized species who reside in and around urban environments and are affected by the way cities distance themselves from biodiversity and move towards monocultures. Along with the personality and significance of the characters, the excerpts from the stories illustrates their role and perspective in this scenario :

Concept Development - The Stories

"Stop digging your nose in research. Start writing. Be silly"

That was some much needed advice that I received in the last seminar. Even though research and reading can go on forever, it needs to take a backseat now and the process of concept development has to begin.

Here are the ABC's of what the stories require:

The concept 
The storybook weaves together a narrative made up of the accounts of various species that have been witness to or marginalized by the depletion of biodiversity in and around urban environments.

The setting
The stories are set in a landscape that spans across a peri-urban landfill, the farms that produce food for the city and the city itself. 

The Tone
The tales are from the perspective of the various animate and inanimate witnesses. They will try to evoke empathy and curiosity in subjects that are complex yet relevant to the lives of an urban audience. The tone will be casual, satirical and descriptive.

Seminar 2 : Presentation and Feedback

8th August, 2013

The second seminar presentation charted the themes that can be included in the storybook, the research and inferences on biodiversity being explored through food and finally the story structures and characters.

The presentation can be viewed here:

The feedback I received this time was:

PRESENTATION :

- Clear, concise, organized. - Do not over-explain everything !

RESEARCH / METHODOLOGY/ APPROACH :

- Cite the context of the city where the research is coming from,
even if it is common everywhere. - It is interesting to use design tools as story structures. - Try to collect stories that already exist among communities. - Try using social mapping as a tool to map these stories.

CONCEPT : - One can either use existing stories and personalize them or write a new narrative altogether. The two ways of working can be Fact or Fiction.
CONCERNS :- Can the protagonist be empathized with?
- Can the call for action be portrayed effectively?

NEXT STEPS:

- Keep a story journal and write every day, if not for final content but to
collect instances and nuances that can be used for the final storybook.
- Stop researching further, keep the research aside and start working with an imaginative outlook.
Be playful and silly.

Character Explorations and possible Story Structures.

To weave together all the themes related to biodiversity into one narrative, I needed to look at possible story structures and interesting characters who can play a role in illustrating this information.

The first option was to have personas of various human key-players who can take us through the scenarios : a farmer, a doctor, a house-holder, a scientist. But this is the most predictable path to take, as my advisors say. The story can take a million other shapes and could be through the perspective of something inanimate or non-human. This was the next area to explore.

The story structures that I explored were:

See, Think, Wonder : This one's actually a Design Tool for visible thinking. But it can be a great way to create a reflective narrative in first person through a protagonist who witnesses a change.

The Monomyth : Or the Hero's Journey by Joseph Campbell is one of the most common and legendary narrative structures. that follows the protagonist as he embarks upon a journey, through his obstacles to see him emerge victorious and return to his world, having eveolved spiritually.

The Short Story : The structure of a short story is debatable, ranging from this to this or even this one here.
The common thread in these, as one can see is the presence of peaks and falls, a heightening of drama and mystery which is then solved to take the reader through an exciting turn of events in the short span of the story, something common even in the world's greatest and most effective speeches, as observed by Nancy Duarte in this video.

Here's what came out of this thought process :

Offering Map and themes for storybook

The Offering Map was a tool that was used to chart all the gathered information, research and analysis on one plane. It helped me connect everything back to the topic of Biodiversity and observe these links to understand the many themes that can be covered in the storybook.

Using this tool, I could draw the following inferences. They were then associated with the six dimensions of understanding to look at the nature of these themes. 

Conversations

The kind of agriculture being practiced in the country can be largely classified under non-organic farming that involves usage of genetically modified seeds, chemical pesticides and fertilizers and farming that is done organically, the former being the one that is more widely preferred.

Non-organic / synthetic farming is chemical intensive and cultivates monocultures for the benefit of harvesting a greater produce and getting government subsidies. Organic farming, on the other hand, uses no chemical based pesticides or fertilizers but is not supported by government subsidies. The importance of biodiverse farming where nutrients from one crop benefit the ones around it, is one that cannot be appreciated by chemical aided farming. Non-organic farms work towards the growth of a single crop by eliminating the growth of other native or seasonal varieties, poisoning the soil and affecting microbes and insects who form the biodiversity on the farm.

Organic farming is directed towards the use of natural means to meet the needs of pest-control and fertilization of the soil. Biodiversity is a benefit for organic farming through mixed farming as it provides a balanced environment in the farm where different crops support each other around the year, the farmer benefits from a fall back crop in case of a poor harvest of the cash crop and pests are controlled by their predators. What can be inferred from this is how biodiversity can be promoted along with organic farming. To understand if biodiversity is prevalent in organic farming, I decided to look at the organic food system.

Organic food minimizes processing, additives and preservatives. However, it is more expensive as the production costs of organic farming is high and is labour intensive. Though it is recommended for its nutritional values and sustainable principles, organic produce is only afforded and consumed by the higher and upper-middle classes. It was only among these classes that I was able to identify the prevalence of organic food and could discuss the inclusion of biodiversity in their processes:

Places and People:

Fabindia Organics, CMH Road, Indiranagar, Bangalore.

One of the most popular names in organic food in India, Fabindia call their system Inclusive Capitalism, one that gives a fair share of the profit to the farmers and producers. Fabindia introduced me to organic certification.

Phalada Agro Research, Magadi Road, Bangalore.
Phalada Agro process and package the food products sold by Fabindia, 24 Letter Mantra and other organic food industries. Their website mentions a traceability option through which one can get in touch with farmers. Their initiative strives towards "contributing towards the conservation and restoration of biodiversity."

The Farmer's Market - Indiranagar, Bangalore.

The market was a congregation of people who grow and produce organic food and lifestyle products and is held once a month in Indiranagar. I was able to speak to Vishaklakshi of Buffalo Back Organics, who has broken the myth that organic farming cannot meet the productivity attained by non-organic farming. She collaborates with several farmers who maintain biodiverse, organic farms and markets them under her brand.

John Fennessy runs Hamsah Organic Farm in Sarjapur, Bangalore and after the first year of low productivity, his patience was rewarded with a great, green bounty in the years to follow. According to him, his only pest-control is biodiversity. The farm has developed an eco-system in which each pest has it's own predator and the produce does not suffer. He uses herbal pesticides such as neem extract instead of chemicals.

Finally, Govind Shivkumar, Investment Manager at LGT Venture Philantrophy, had lots of useful information to share about consumption patterns in cities. He maintains that it is not a matter of quantity but quality of food that affects the health and well-being of city dwellers. Processed food is largely consumed while horticulture is in the decline. Farm area around cities that was used for growing fruits and vegetables is now being used for building townships. As a result, fresh fruits and vegetables are absent from our daily consumption and are sold at prices that cannot be afforded by all.

Here's a gist of all that I could gather from these conversations:

These opinions, experiences and insights will be most useful in shaping the stories as examples of how biodiversity can become part of industry, livelihood and lifestyle in the city. Living with bio-diversity is not that hard to achieve, it is merely a matter of how we choose to shape our food systems.

Consumption Patterns

A simple way of understanding the link between us and the food we eat is to observe the forces involved:
There is no particular stage that controls what is grown and what is eaten, it can be seen as a dynamic system. What we demand as consumers is what the farmer is compelled to grow and the market to supply.
On the other hand, we can only stock up in our cellars what is available in the market. A useful way to observe this system and how it affects society is through consumption patterns, in which all three forces are visible. To achieve this I accessed the National Sample Survey of India and various articles and discussions such as this one that observe the changing habits and patterns in our food consumption.

One of the main inferences from the NSSO was the fall in demand for coarse cereals (ragi, jowar, bajra, millets) observed across all classes in society. Also, there is a shift towards processed food among both rural and urban consumers as the consumption of fresh vegetables and fruits has declined. Without a doubt, the change in food consumption has an effect on the health and well-being of society. The coarse cereals have served as a source of micro-nutrients in various forms across India. Fresh fruits and vegetables are the only natural source for vitamins and minerals, the deficiencies of which are evident among the lower class who cannot afford to purchase them. And processed food, rich in sugar, salt, fat and preservatives has shown its impact through rise in cardiac diseases, diabetes and obesity.

A healthy, balanced diet is one that involves an intake of a variety of foods in their appropriate portions. As important as diversity is in nature, it is vital in our diet in the form of Dietary Diversity. Our country, with its varied soil and climate distribution can cultivate this diversity and meet our dietary needs. However, the ill-health rampant in the country stand witness to the fact that there is great disparity in accessibility to a healthy diet. A monoculture diet as opposed to a diverse diet can be observed in all classes of society. For one, rice and wheat have become the only cereals that are widely consumed. Not only do they fail to compensate for the nutritional value of millets, they are also expensive to become a part of the households of economically weak.

 The matter of concern is that the availability of millets and the land usage for their cultivation is diminishing. At a political level, the Public Distribution System largely distributes only rice and wheat as cereals, forcing a monoculture in both the fields and the diet. The conservation of millets and their consumption on a larger scale is a necessity to maintain agrobiodiversity. Millets have a greater capacity to grow in harsh conditions as opposed to rice and wheat that require continuous irrigation and fertilizers to grow as a monoculture in incompatible conditions.

In recent times, millets are being promoted and revived (read here) in an attempt to draw attention to their health benefits and decline in consumption. They are also emerging as a trend among the elite and the health conscious, at higher prices. As can be read in this article, it is a foolish act on our parts to have forgotten the importance of a diverse diet and the richness of millets, and instead turn first towards cereals rich in sugars and carbs and then towards expensive health fads when the answer to well being was always the inclusion of the array of millets that our land has to offer. To really appreciate the change in diet over the years, here's a blogpost worth reading.

On Monocultures

Though the greater part of our country is agrarian, it cannot be denied that cities are the heart of economical and cultural exchange. In many ways most consumption trends and patterns are setexamples of how distinct cultures amalgamate in cities to move towards a monoculture...This is not necessarily a bad thing unless this uniformity comes at the cost of a loss of tradition and cultural diversity. Monocultures are created by markets, enter our lives through consumerism and then become embedded in our lifestyles.
in the metros that then percolate to the cities and surrounding towns such as that of processed food, instant meals, imported consumables. The urban population also represents a diaspora, people who live away from their place of origin and migrate to cities for employment opportunities. As a result, cities adopt to provide a uniform experience that can cater to the demands of people from various backgrounds. Individuals from various parts of the country, who would traditionally shop at a weekly haat or at a river side market now shop for the same goods in a supermarket, where they are available to them at all hours of the day. One can cite many such examples.

Why monocultures ?

It is clear why monocultures arise. They are cultivated to meet the demands of masses, to increase efficiency and productivity.They also require close monitoring and standardization. Monoculture crops or intensive farming requires more chemical based pesticides and fertilizers to meet the productivity as these crops are not always indigenous to the soil that they are grown in. Not only for food but forest monocultures such as Eucalyptus and Acacia for industrial interests such as for paper-pulp, pose a threat to the water table and endanger other species that are dependent on natural forest cover. Read this for more.

Failure of Monocultures.

One cannot overlook the vulnerability of a Monoculture. If the masses are dependent on the same forces for their needs, it makes them a target for political coercion and control. Monocultures have been associated with violence against the natural order. In agriculture as well as in cities, it is diversity that flourishes in its own capacity without intervention from external forces. 

Drawing from the past, the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840's and the Corn Blight Epidemic in the U.S.A. in 1970 that resulted in a loss of over a billion dollars, were both failures of Monocultures that resulted in crop failure, hunger and great financial losses. Neither of these historical instances served as a lesson for a mankind as monocultures continue to be planted in large areas of cultivable land. They are a severe threat to biological diversity as we slowly uproot varieties that naturally inhabit land to replace them with a few species.

 Genetically modified species pose the threat of monocultures at a more dangerous level. G.M. seeds in one culture are not only the same variety of crop but are genetically identical i.e. clones of each other. Each seed has the same level of resistance and compatibility, making them equally vulnerable to pests. Naturally occuring variety in crops allows a survival of the fittest, where certain plants that are more resistant to the disease / pest survive as a fall-back crop for the farmer. 

In India, monoculture and G.M. farming has led to thousands of farmer suicides. The heavy debts and persistent crop failure on chemical dependent farming led to great losses for the farmers. The Bt Cotton plantations in Vidharbha was a horrifying example of how monocultures can lead to destruction, documented in P. Sainath's study and the movie Nero's Guests. Yet, inorganic farming is seen as the most profitable and prevalent, being subsidized by the Government. There is resistance from several farmers and organic farming in India is on the rise but the understanding of organic farming is very different from agro-biodiversity.
Mr. Bhaskar Save is one individual who identified the dangers of inorganic farming early and since the past 60 years has practiced farming based on cultivating diversity, as seen in this documentary.

Here's a comparison of monocultures in cities and in agriculture and characteristics that affect both.
The important words have been highlighted.

In coming posts, we'll look at how farming and consumption are moving towards organic and pro-biodiverse produce and how the shift from monocultures to biodiversity is gradual but possible.

Topics to explore

From the feedback that I received after the first seminar, the most important was to focus on the topics that need to be explored further. The topics were then assessed for relevance :

As can be seen, Monocultures, the link between Cultural Diversity and Biodiversity and the need for Indicators are topics that have more scope for exploration. They are more inclusive and not specific to a class or gender, and can help us look at conserving Biodiversity as a collective responsibility.
The other topics can be auxiliary in understanding the effect of degradation of Biodiversity and be explored to a lesser degree. 

Seminar 1 : Presentation and Feedback

19th July, 2013

This was the first of the five seminars during the course of the diploma project where we share and discuss the progress of our work with students and faculty for new perspectives, evaluation and feedback.
Through the seminar I was able to give an introduction to The Biodiversity Storybook,
share my initial research, findings and the choice of directions that the project could take.
The presentation can be viewed here:




The feedback I received at this point is as follows:

PRESENTATION :
- Clear, crisp and simple presentation, well presented.
- Avoid using the words “my project” or “my goals”. Need to represent the
project in a way that it stands on its own.
- The need to impact the urban public has been identified.

RESEARCH / METHODOLOGY/ APPROACH :
- Crisp and clear in approach. Research focused on broad agenda and needs.
- Project is research heavy, is there time for design development?
- Need to make sure that various areas of research don’t take over the project.
- Organizing research and selection of topic and flow seem clear.
- Only left-wing case studies have been studied, are there conventional and  
  conservative case studies to define the challenges?

CONCEPT : - Is the storybook the best way of disseminating the message?
- Since the medium is decided, the form can be explored. Pop-ups or interactive
   techniques can be involved.
- One can reflect on how biodiversity is taught in schools through focus groups
  and then try to make the subject such that everyone can relate to it.

CONCERNS :
- The project is ambitious, but the form of storytelling has great potential.
- Since storytelling has no limits, is the ‘urban’ boundary a problem?
- What makes the book different from those existing?
- Interviews and other research ahead may be too ambitious without identifying
  modes of data collection.
- Could lack of indicators of biodiversity for the urban public be a problem?
   With the urban population, is ignorance bliss?

NEXT STEPS:
- Need to do in-depth research on one area of the topic to develop narrative,
  build characters and make the project manageable.
- How will one move towards conceptualizing the book?
- Find data collection tools.
- Meet and get feedback from the writing centre about storytelling and writing.
- Ideate and create a few concepts and see what makes them special.
- Get client feedback at regular intervals, not just when the book is completed.

Visit to NBA, Chennai

On the 15th of July, 2013, the Communicating Biodiversity team* visited the National Biodiversity office in Chennai. The meeting gave us a great overview of the kind of initiatives that are being taken for the preservation of the country's biodiversity. The current focus is strengthening the implementation of the Biological Diversity Act and Rules with focus on its Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS)Provisions through the UNEP-GEF and MoEF Project. 

We were fortunate to speak to the individuals, including the Chairman, Mr. Balakrishna Pisupati, about their initiatives and could gather many interesting facts about Biodiversity Management.

For one, the NBA has undertaken an exhaustive valuation of the countries biological resources by engaging and training village youth, traditional healers, womenfolk and local communities to identify and record the biodiversity in their vicinity in Peoples Biodiversity Registers.

It was note-worthy to see how Biodiversity was being geographically categorized under Wetlands, Forests and Agriculture to define the various ecosystems. Culturally, Biodiversity was identified in medicinal herbs, sacred groves and seasonal plants. Even though valuation focuses on the economic value of Biological Resources, their health and nutrition benefits were also highlighted. It was made visible to us how various livelihoods and practices are closely  linked with their ecology. The importance and vastness of the country's Biodoversity could be appreciated in just listening to the various details that the NBA initiatives cover. 

As for the Communicating Biodiversity project, we were given the freedom to explore various forms, narratives, subjects as long as we did it with sensitivity and empathy. The power of storytelling as a mode of communication is something that the NBA believes in and Dr. Balakrishna gave us several examples of how innovative communication such as board games or textbooks created from People's Biodiversity Registers can enhance people's understanding and interest in the subject of Biodiversity.

For us, it was extremely motivating to see their interest and enthusiasm in designing new modes of communication. Which leaves us with the responsibility of delivering something that does justice to this freedom. The task now is to pick the right themes, choose the appropriate form and design a powerful story.

* You can view the progress of the animation being created for the project on Harshvardhan's blog http://backyard-biodiversity.blogspot.in/

Movements that Inspire - Food Democracy

Food Democracy is a concept that brings together farmers, concerned citizens and agricultural scientists. It defines a framework in which the people of a country actively participate in the food system and the policies that surround it. The movement began in the mid-1990s as a response to the increasing corporate control and lack of consumer participation in the food system. To relate this back to biodiversity, it allows farmers to grow local varieties that are otherwise lost in cultivating monocultures, it gives the people the right to say no to genetically modified species and gives them control over traditional knowledge and can choose the direction in which agricultural research should head. Conserving biodiversity thus becomes a collective responsibility, guided by the concern of healthy lifestyles and balanced eco-systems on the farm.

In India,Vandana Shiva is the ambassador for agro-biodiversity and food democracy. Her foundation Navdanya, provides the farmers from the foothills of the Himalayas to conserve plant species in a seed-bank, gives them the opportunity to practice bio-diverse farming and has set up learning centers where traditional and innovative knowledge is exchanged. They have also empowered women across generations, who are the custodians of cultural knowledge and wisdom through the Grandmother's University.

A global initiative that one can draw inspiration from is Excluded Voices. Their food democracy movements across the globe have brought farmers and agricultural scientists together to share knowledge and opinions about the future of agriculture. Participatory videos and maps helped the farmer groups document traditional methods of farming  and endemic varieties of plants and animals. They used role play to understand perspectives of key players in the food production system. Citizen Juries help create a collective voice that demands food sovereignty. They even brought together farmer groups from various countries as a gesture of solidarity and pride. 

India and Biodiversity

To gain insights about the discussions that surround Biodiversity in India, I read Ashish Kothari's Understanding Biodiversity. The text gives a detailed background of Biodiversity management in India, the threats to Biodiversity and what measures have already been taken. It was a great way of understanding the subject with respect to the diversity that our country harbours based on availability of resources, various livelihoods, cultural differences, disparity in class and addresses the debate on Intellectual Property Rights on traditional knowledge. The book also cites examples of inspiring people and movements that have preserved and maintained biological diversity in India.

A comprehensive and concisely written study on the ecological issues in India from the National, Urban and Agricultural perspectives is Anil Agarwal's Politics of Environment. The study helped me identify a few topics that can be explored further.

The topics identified were:

Diversity gets transformed into Monocultures. This can be said for the cultural diversity in cities and the biological diversity in farms. Furthermore, cultural diversity is born out of biological diversity.

Urban migrants are not economic refugees but ecological refugees, displaced by building of dams, mining, deforestation, etc.

The biggest ally for an ecologically / socially sound environment is Womankind.

We do not yet know how to construct a social / economic / ecological indicator for urban residents to detect depleting biodiversity.

Of these topics, one will be explored further to shape the narrative of the storybook.

Dimensions of Understanding.

When decoding a complex subject such as Biodiversity, it helps to adopt a new perspective of looking at things. A Whole New Mind is a book by Donald H. Pink that helps me do just that. This book enlists Six Essential Senses that come into play when thinking creatively. These senses are Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play and Meaning.

I've adopted these senses as the dimensions of understanding the design process that can be followed to create a storybook. Since the outcome of the project is defined already, the path to it can be paved using these dimensions. 

Using the six dimensions, I have tried to strategize the process and topics that can be addressed through this storybook in the following mind-map.

These dimensions lend themselves in enriching a designer-user contribution to the project, as seen in the actor's map below.

Biodiversity- The Context

How can the two subjects of Biodiversity and the Urban audience be brought on the same plane?

Let's look at the 3 main objectives that various biodiversity conventions and organizations stress upon.

CONSERVATION : The biggest threat to biodiversity is how forest cover, wetlands and farms are stripped down to make way for urbanization without conservation of the species who inhabit these areas. We are losing species at 1000-10,000 times the natural rate of extinction, dangerously affecting the interdependence of various species. Not only this, we are also controlling the natural variability through genetic modification and promoting the development of only a few varieties of a certain plant or animal. Raising monocultures to increase productivity, eliminates diversity.

SUSTAINABILITY : There is a great disparity in the rate at which we consume biological resources and the rat at which these resources replenish themselves. The biggest consumers of energy and raw natural material are cities and industries. Exploitation of resources for development in a manner that leaves no sustenance for the future exhausts natural resources and threatens biodiversity.

ACCESS AND BENEFIT SHARING : Traditional knowledge about plants and animals, that is protected and preserved by indigenous tribes and farmers is patented and used for commercial means by capital powers, often providing no profit or access to the rightful custodians. When urban consumers promote the commercial use of such products, we put the power of controlling diversity in a few hands. 

Here's a map that identifies the various facets that define the context of this project