Theme: India and the World
Design, Culture and Communication

Aarohan 2027
India and the World

An International Seminar on Design, Culture and Communication

The Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, in collaboration with the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Government of India, invites paper submissions for the second edition of Aarohan.

Aarohan 2027: India and the World · An International Seminar on Design, Culture and Communication, looks at design as a cultural, social, institutional, and technological force, one that shapes how a nation is seen, argued over, and remade, at home and abroad. Submissions may explore this through India's own case, another country's, or a comparison between them, across four domains: Communication Design; Social Design; Curatorial, Digital Representation and Digital Humanities; and Sustainability, Design Education and Futures. Each domain can be approached through three discourses: Design Histories and Genealogies; Contemporary Design Cultures, Institutions and Infrastructures; or Design Futures, Strategies and Scenarios.

Along with traditional and modern forms of design, Aarohan 2027: India and the World · Design, Culture and Communication, brings these conversations together with newer questions about digital public infrastructure, artificial intelligence, FinTech, and algorithms. We don't see these only as technologies: we build them, and in turn, they shape our behaviour, our institutions, our identities, and our everyday lives.

Domains and Discourses

Submissions are invited across four domains:

Communication Design: This domain concerns the visible face through which a language, nation, city, institution or publication becomes recognisable graphic design, branding, typography, illustration, visual identity, publishing, media, and public campaigns, the everyday tools that make, spread, and argue over national and cultural narratives.
Social Design: This domain concerns communication and interaction as social relations, whether or not they take a visual form. It covers bottom-up approaches, including participatory and community-led design, civic engagement, repair and informal design practices, grassroots projects, the making and care of the commons, and service, systems and policy approaches directed towards social change
Cultural Representation and Digital Humanities: This domain concerns the showing, storage and reading of culture. It covers exhibition, museum, and heritage design practices, alongside new media, interface, and platform design for AI, digital infrastructure, and digital humanities methods applied to culture and memory.
Critical Design and Futures: This domain concerns propositions for a future imagined beyond the nation: shared humanity, climate change and sustainability, given form as scenarios, strategies and speculative projects.

Each domain may be approached through one of three discourses, including the past, present and future and how they are/could be included in design and/or its education.

Design Histories: Tracing the archives, origins, and evolution of practices, artefacts, and systems, including Alternate Histories, Material Culture and Everyday Objects, Social and Cultural Transformations, Movements and Ideologies, etc.
Design Studies: Critical and theoretical analysis of contemporary design impacts and systemic interactions, including Societal Transformations & Social Innovation, Design Theory and Methodologies, Decolonial Studies, HTI and Ethics, Design for Sustainability and Ecology, Social and Cultural Impact, etc.
Design Pedagogies: Examining how design is taught, the evolution of curricula, and the institutional frameworks shaping future practitioners, including Sustainability in Design Education, Evolving Studio Culture, Interdisciplinary and Cross-Institutional Learning, AI and the Digital Transition in Learning, etc.

Authors should name their domain and discourse at submission.

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Note for International Applicants

International Fellows are welcome to explore these discourses through their experience: how design has shaped their national identity historically, how it works today in their own communication or public life, or how it might change in future. You can compare or connect your experience with India's, placing the seminar in a wider international conversation. If your research focuses specifically on India, that is equally welcome, as is a comparison between your own country and India.