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Creative Resistance
"When Mont Blanc Ink Runs Through Father Of A Nation"
Not many designers understand that meanings and interpretations are meaningless if the sole purpose of design is only to empower the elite and the powerful section of a society, argues Sethu Das of Design & People while presenting the case of Mahatma Gandhi Limited Edition 241. Read

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Creative Resistance
"People's Own Fortune Tellers and Story Tellers"
Sometimes unpredictable events lead to favorable outcomes. Sethu Das of Design & People tells us how fortunate he was to meet with Anubrotto Kumar Roy, popularly known as Dunu Roy — India's own story teller whose stories are centered around the wisdom of the ordinary people. Read

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Design & People
Our 'Open Design Philosophy'
The current literary and artistic property rights result in restriction of the public's access to works of art whereas the goal of the 'Open Design Philosophy' of Design & People is to encourage such access. This is designed to enable the public to use our artworks openly and creatively, therefore reinforcing the idea of the user/producer model of the internet and other digital media. It recognises and reminds us with the fact that with the birth of the Internet, there are greater possibilities of collaboration, shared and distributed production. The Open Design Philosophy of Design & People advocates an economy appropriate for art — based on sharing, exchange and joyful giving.

More About 'Open Design Philosophy': Read

Our 'Open Design Philosophy' allows a user to copy, share, study, distribute, display, transform or even make derivative works of Design & People artworks for any non-commercial or academic purpose by giving appropriate credit to the author of the work. It also encourages the design experimentation process undertaken by designers.

'Design & People Downloads': Enter

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'Daya Bai', India's maverick activist relaunches 'Creative Resistance' during a 'Face to Face' with her organised by Design & People and BookPort at Ernakulam on August 3, 2009. Journalist and Novelist KR Meera and Niranjan Das Sharma of Design & People next to her.

Creative Resistance
designandpeople.org/resistance
With the formation of Design & People in 2003, we also released 'Creative Resistance' — popularly known as the journal of the outspoken. Poetry sessions, exhibitions and public debates marked the launch of Creative Resistance with writings on vast variety of subjects, such as war, politics, activism and environment (Read more about the launch of Creative Resistance in 2003).

The beginning of Creative Resistance also marked the end of traditional copyrights laws of on words written by people for the people. Our Open Policy allowed people to copy, share, distribute, display, transform and make derivatives of Design & People artworks for non-commercial and academic purposes. We encouraged public access to information at a time literary property rights propagated restriction.

Creative Resistance took the creative community by surprise and disappointment as they found not a single essay on design or art in it. While some demanded the reimbursement of the cost price they paid for the Journal, many institutions and individuals promoted the very basic concept. We at Design & People believe that design is all about issues we are surrounded with and our collective methods and initiatives to resolve them, rather than individual, creative expressions. This is the philosophy we wanted to spread among our design community. More than a philosophy, it is the duty of our generation.

Global recession and lack of creative ways of distribution forced us to silence our creative guns and declare a temporary ceasefire. Many of us are going to miss Creative Resistance in print format. The Journal now reaches you in the most democratic format — PDF.

Read

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Items on Design & People (May 2006)
'Designs For A Better World'
Popular Dutch Design magazine 'Items' on Design & People and the people behind the unusual concept of Open Design in its story — 'Designs For A Better World'.
Read (Dutch)

Outlook on Design & People (Jan 2005)
'The Visual Metaphor Of Dissent'
Outlook features Design & People and its activities for those in despair through 'Making a Difference' — profile of people who work under wraps, beyond the laudatory limelight.
Read (English)

Architect & Interiors on Design & People (Sept 2009)
'Designers With A Cause'
Maria Louis, Editor of Architect & Interiors India magazine interviews Sethu Das and Suku Dass, Co-Founders of Design & People.
Read

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August 9, 2003
Design & People: A Journey Begins
Cochin, Kerala: Design & People launched its own brand of 'Design Activism' through an exhibition titled 'Portrait of A Corporate Crime'. It was an exhibition of photographs of the Bhopal gas tragedy by Padmashri Raghu Rai. The eminent filmmaker, Shri Adoor Gopalakrishnan — who has continuously used his films to hold a mirror to the society, inaugurated the exhibition on August 9, 2003, at the Kerala Lalitha Kala Academy Gallery, Ernakulam. The people of Kerala got a chance to witness this five-day long exhibition consisting of 58 photographs due to the initiative taken by Design & People and Greenpeace. In a bold departure from typical ceremony protocol, a lamp was not lit to mark the inauguration of an event. Instead a 2-minute silence was observed in memory of those who died in the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy, and also as a mark of protest against the collusion between a corrupt government and a corporate giant responsible for the tragedy.

Unlike other ceremonies, a lamp was lit by eminent filmmaker Shri Adoor Gopalakrishnan in memory of those who died in the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy. (L to R) Suku Dass and Sethu Das (Co-founders, Design & People); Shri Ganesh Nochur (Greenpeace), Shri KL Mohanavarma (Novelist) and Smt Leela Menon (Journalist).

Delivering the inaugural address, Shri Adoor Gopalakrishnan remarked that it has become a crime to take birth in underdeveloped countries. "The multinationals attach little value to the lives of those who inhabit in the third world. Living in a third world is only a 'claim' and in reality, we are heading towards a fourth world." Shri Thomas Jacob (Press Academy Chairman and Associate Editor, Malayala Manorama), Smt Leela Menon (Journalist), Shri KL Mohana Varma (Novelist), Shri Ganesh Nochur (Greenpeace), Shri Sethu Das and Shri Suku Dass (Co-founders, Design & People) also spoke on the event. The 5-day long exhibition had several activities planned for each day. 'Creative Resistance' — a collection of writings published by Design & People, was released by Shri Thomas Jacob. Shri Adoor Gopalakrishnan released an audio CD produced by Design & People titled 'Talk Sense Series', containing a speech by Dr Vandana Shiva titled 'Towards Compassionate Economy and Technology' with an introduction by Prof Samdhong Rinpoche. 'Miles to Go', a 58-minute film documenting '1000 Bhopals Jathra', a 60-day journey by Greenpeace India activists made by Nina Subramnani, a Chennai-based filmmaker premiered at Cochin at the Kerala Lalitha Kala Academy Gallery on August 13, 2003 marking the end to this event.

About 'Portrait of A Corporate Crime': The world-renowned photographer, Raghu Rai, arrived in Bhopal hours after the gas leak to find chaos. The dead were being buried and cremated, the hospitals were overflowing with thousands of patients and the doctors had no idea on how to treat them as there were no guidelines from Union Carbide on what needed to be done in such an eventuality. It soon dawned on Rai that he was documenting a massive disaster and the beginning of a never-ending nightmare for the gas-exposed survivors. "What I saw was to change my life. It was an unprecedented scene of chaos. What startled me most was the silence of death. Thousands of people had already died, thousands more than those who died in the 11 September attack on the World Trade Centre. I vowed then and there to continue my work, to do all I could to show the world what happens to people when corporations are not held liable for their operations, when they are allowed to cut costs and safety standards when they operate abroad." To date, 20,000 have died from gas exposure and the effects are now extending into the next generation. 1,50,000 of the survivors are chronically ill and communities are drinking contaminated groundwater because Dow has still not cleaned up the dangerous chemicals Union Carbide left behind. After almost 18 years, what this exhibition clearly shows is that the people of Bhopal need action not mere words.

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"I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny ? In other words, will it lead to 'Swaraj' for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubts and your self melting away."
Mahatma Gandhi

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