Unlearning to learn new things
Charles Tirkey is the founder of Aarree, a brand developing bespoke furniture. He is a graduate in Industrial Design from National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. He has the experience of working at various roles with enterprises like Abhikalp Design Studio, Tata, Mahindra, Ashok Leyland, TVS; social enterprise like Echostream; faculty at National Institute of Design (Ahmedabad), LISAA (New Delhi), GD Goenka University (Gurugram).
To him design has more to do with unlearning than of learning. Designing and styling for a product has to revolve around the ambitions of the user. Charles’ graduation project was with Maruti Suzuki where he had designed an MPV for the company and his key learning was to navigate through the differences of perceptions in teamwork. He has also been invested in Photography. He has had the experience of working with Senior Artists where he had to do art installation projects in Delhi. His project with TVS had won an award.
A number of observations are made by Charles. He was involved in the groundwork for the use of motifs for industrial products from utilising Indian crafts. The main concern for him is why design in Indian industrial products is not as identifiable as in textile design. Motifs when not made contemporary to cater to the needs of people in day to day lives, remain unutilised and decline after some time. The social sector failing to share its knowledge base to the industrial design field is a major impediment to the crafts and community. Knowledge only works when it flows. The dispersal of knowledge would create opportunities for the community of origin of motifs and the industrial design as well. Designers have been under-represented, under-utilised for the effort that they put in.
According to Charles, Postmodernism is a vexation to Design in many ways. The dissociation of meaning from any art, literature, product etc according to postmodernism equates to consumerism.
As a designer, he has the experience of hosting a workshop for strawberry bamboo packaging for the indigenous people in Rig Bhoi, Meghalaya. His role as a designer was to take the community through the process and not dictate the packaging. The community was able to express itself through their produce as well as packaging. This greatly reduced their dependence on plastic.