Moe Chibe will be joining the upcoming discussion about designers working in India. Moe Chiba has extensive experience working throughout the South Asia region. She heads up the Culture Unit of UNESCO in New Delhi and has been working with the Craft Revival Trust on the second edition of their Designers Meet Artisans publication. She is currently on leave from UNESCO in order to spend more time with grass-roots organisations and learn what’s happening in the field.
Moe Chiba will be part of the forum The Visible Hand: What Made in India Means Today, where she’ll be reflecting on the current state of crafts in India and the potential for collaboration with designers. She’ll be joined by Melbourne designer Sara Thorn, who has been producing textiles handmade in India for the World Weave label. Chris Godsell from Peddle Thorp will have the opportunity to look back to the experience of constructing the main stadium for the Commonwealth Games in Delhi and Soumitri Varadarajan from Industrial Design at RMIT will have the chance to provide a broader historical and cultural perspective.
This forum is the opening event of Sangam – the Australia India Design Platform, which is a three year program of forums, workshops, roundtables, residencies and exchanges. Its aim is to develop an understanding between the contemporary trajectories of Australia and India. In particular, it builds a pathway that enables designers to build ethical and viable partnerships with traditional artisans.
This is also the first event of the Ethical Design Laboratory, which is a newly established research area at RMIT Centre for Design.