IDeA

Background

This is an art installation that I made for the research center where I worked as a student researcher during my MS program- the IDeA Center (Center for Inclusive Design and Environmental Access). It is an on campus research center at the University at Buffalo, whose activities are based on the philosophy of Inclusive Design, often called “Universal Design” or “Design for All.” It is a way of thinking that can be applied in any design activity, business practice, program or service involving interaction of people with the physical, social or virtual worlds.

This project was a voluntary effort on my part, just to express my gratitude towards the amazing work that gets done over there. As a student in the US, limited financial resources for such a voluntary art project required me to use scarp materials to build it. But the outcome was well appreciated and this installation currently sits in the research center’s conference room.

Description of the art installation

Every great design starts with an idea…an idea which is in a spiritual form, bright and full of light and holds great potential to impact the masses. This art installation depicts how an idea gets embodied from spiritual to a material form. Any idea starts from the depths of our mind, but needs a propitious medium to grow and flourish. The base of this installation depicts an idea in the form of a bright light emerging from bottom of our mind. The light leaks out in all directions, seeking a fertile medium to grow. The glowing cube depicts the IDeA center which is symbolized as a fertile soil. The idea gets embodied into a seed and gets sowed into the IDeA center. The temperature difference of the light reflects the warmth and comfort that the center offers. The light is now contained and glowing instead of dispersed. Eventually, this seed grows into a tree, finding its way out into the world outside this cube, but still having its roots well intact within the cube. The spherical shape of the tree depicts edgelessness- it is growing in all directions, unimpeded in its noble purpose of universal design. The spherical shape also symbolizes the concept of universal design.