Every year I am used to saying “What a year” with a sense of fulfillment and gratitude. This year I say “What a year” with a stranger feeling that I am yet to name. It was a year with a lot of struggles, of feeling invisible, of feeling exhausted, of having trouble giving up spaces. There was a constant indecision about wanting to be invisible and wanting my work to be witnessed. Recently, a friend articulated her motto, “wanting to be good, and stay invisible”. I have yet to process these ideas, and feelings and locate my current pulse. But to keep with the tradition here to document the things I made, I shared and I learned.
Making/Doing
On scientists and their feelings
Continuing with the work on bridging science and society, I looked at humans of science this year. I had asked long ago, ‘am I still a scientist?’ Thinking further, I looked up what makes a scientist do what they do, how they look at their work and their science.
I started by reading Barbara McClintock’s biography by EF Keller titled “A Feeling for the Organism”. There are so many stories from the book that I fell in love with. But the one that stood out the most is:
I wanted to visualize this feeling. I created this hand-painted paper-cut triptych that shows different scales of the maize that she worked with, looked at, and handled. She moves from the background to the foreground. It shows how she felt that she ‘spoke’ plants and knew and understood each one, felt like one when around them; how looking at the seed she knew what the chromosomes would tell her. She never found that language to falter and always knew the chromosomal patterns from looking at any seed in the field. She knew her subject so intimately, it wasn’t an object for her.
Next, I read autobiographical notes written by Nobel Prize winners. I chose a subset of women winners in Physiology and related chemistry and one of their male counterparts (if the prize was shared). I also read a few notes of male winners who won the whole share. I read them to understand what parts of life they acknowledge to reflect on how they arrived at this point of the highest honor. It is visualized as an organism. More here.
Some of them are beautifully written and contain deep reflections. They also betray a little of the scientist’s personality and personhood. My favorite is the one written by Carol Greider. She shares a lot about friendships in science and life.
In a serendipitous instance, as I was reading these biographies, Aswathy Raveendran from the HBSCE reached out seeking potential collaboration that connected young researchers to their feelings of doing science. Together we have built, Biotales, an IBS outreach grant-supported project that gives space for young pods and postdocs to reflect on their life in science. For me, the most enjoyable part was to develop the two-day immersive online experience for the participants. Developing readings, activities, and platforms for collaborative exercises in the online space in the post-COVID era was challenging. We found the right tone and modular workload where the participants can plug in and plug out to engage with the shared ideas. In the past two workshops, it’s been a joy to share stories, see scientists locate a space to discuss the self in science and identify that often personal means political.
You should check out some of my favorite pieces here, here, and here.
On lost species and specimens
Thinking about extinction conversations and conservation efforts that seem to choose the species that are big and important. A lot of smaller animals, plants, and protists remain undocumented, poorly researched, and vulnerable to extinction, and their losses remain unacknowledged. Using IUCN databases, I located several algae, fungi, ‘lower’ animals, and ‘lower plants that have been lost. I painted portraits for them using carbon, an element we associate with life, and use it as a currency for environmental damage. The altar made with these portraits served as an altar to mourn them.
In another conversation about extinct specimens, I wondered how our understanding of time before us depends on our understanding of today and vice versa, sticking us in a loop of knowledge generation that is endlessly interdependent. It was visualized using clay and illustrations, with the generous help of Nandita Saha.
In an upcoming zine, I imagine a story where stolen diaspores from colonially established herbariums are used to restore lost species in native lands.
On cellular and molecular operations
In an ongoing experiment, I am attempting to make a card game based on signal transduction concepts. My friend Sraddha of StudioClockworks introduced me to the idea of designing a card game and it has got me buzzing. A KMD StemPeers fellowship is supporting the process. More when it is ready (ETA March 2025).
Sharing
Zine-ing
This year, I didn’t get around to making zines, but I did share the practice with several folks at India Science Festival, Hyderabad Lit Fest, on Bipolar Day at NIMHANS, and with Rasagy Sharma at CCSante.
Hope to publish some artist books and zines in the next year.
I also did an experimental workshop at CCMB, where we collaboratively worked on making a children’s book that we published on StoryWeaver. Being in a room of biologists is always a pleasant reminder of shared curiosities. It was a joy to deliberate together on ideas, writing, and images as we struggled with the audience’s needs and conceptual clarity.
The human body, afflictions, and manipulations
In two courses with young undergraduate students at SMI, we explored how the human body works, what lives inside the body (the microorganisms), how the body works as a system, and how can we manipulate it. We deliberated on questions about technology and ethics, social aspects of medicinal practices, and more. The idea of looking at a body through the lens of biological systems was challenging for design students at the start but the inquiry through the course impressed upon the relevance that knowledge helps in making choices, asking the right questions from scientists, doctors, policymakers, lawmakers, and the government. It allows them to educate, innovate, and inquire at the interface of personal and medicine, public and education, and political and laws/policy.
In one course we spent more time on how can we manipulate the bacteria inside the body to manipulate ourselves and our societies. It revealed how bodies and their capacities contribute to order within society. In the next course, we understood how illnesses occur, how correction occurs, who gets access to corrective measures, how much agency a patient has in choices made, and more.
The data, and the visualisation
In two courses with students at SMI, we worked on finding data and collecting personal or public data. The intent was to get people to like data, play with data, make sense of data, and share the data with people.
In one course, we tried to understand how an average human on this planet spends their day. We then mapped our own day through meticulous data recording. We then compared our cohort to the average human. We also asked how self-improvement or planet improvement can happen in this day, how can we carve out time, and what can we do in that time.
In another skill-driven course, we created stories, and comics based on public perception data around woke culture, war and video games, youth participation in politics, and governance.
I am no longer associated with SMI and will sorely miss interacting with students. Hope to return to other ways of engaging with young people in the coming year.
Learning
Data visualisation
While working with students, I also felt the need to drive my experimentation with data. I worked on a few personal projects. One is mentioned above, and another one on agriculture-economy is linked here. One based on a book I read this year needs a collaboration/acquisition of skills that are now postponed to the next year.
I also spent some time learning tools and tricks on Tableau and developed two stories on the training data set they provide (Story 1, Story 2). I also analyzed the FAO datasets for economic value, land harvested, and production for the agriculture economy story on Tableau.
I have realized that I like a ‘date with data’ besides the presentation of data. Hoping to try newer ways of collecting and analyzing data that matter to me in the time ahead.
Tango
This year, I think, was a year of dancing for me. I spent a lot of time, attention, and effort on participating in classes, and social dances. It has helped me find peace, joy, and movement. Can’t wait to grow more with the dance form.
How Life Works- By Philip Ball
I did read a few books this year, a better count than the abysmal count from last year. This one stood out in how it made me think, and reassess things I know. It also reaffirmed my ideas as expressed in my cellular and molecular zine series. The idea of agency at the level of proteins and cells was my favorite. Hoping to build some zines and stories based on things that hit me.
On the human thing
This year I struggled with motivation and exhaustion, in continuity with the last year. The unrest and grief from watching the war on Palestine through a screen and feelings of being incapable of action were paralyzing. Pockets of rest were hard to manage. I hope the sense of newness in the new year will enable motivation, action, and rest.
Nevertheless, this year has been a year of ideas; that I was able to experiment with, and some ideas that are waiting to be experimented on; be it bookmaking, working with clay, working with data, and working with people’s stories.
Last year, I did a whole lot of work with communities, this year was more of a solo journey. The only communities and collaboration I worked with was the familiar community of young scientists and of Tango dancers. In the coming year, I hope to ground myself more in more communities & turn conern and goodwill into acts of care.
Wishing hope, clarity, peace and joy to all (and self).
Happy New Year!
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