Prasad Boradkar,
Associate Professor, Arizona State University
Prasad Boradkar is an associate professor in the School of Design at Arizona State University in Tempe. He holds degrees in industrial design and mechanical engineering, and has held positions at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands as well as ITT Technical Institute in California. At ASU, Prasad teaches senior design studio, design history, and materials & processes at the undergraduate level, and a graduate course on design and cultural studies. He is the Co-Director and Project Leader of InnovationSpace, as well as Co-Director and Founder of CriticalCorps. InnovationSpace is a transdisciplinary laboratory at Arizona State University where students and faculty partner with researchers, inventors and businesses to explore user-centered product concepts that improve society and the environment. CriticalCorps is an interdisciplinary group of design researchers and educators who use critical and cultural theory as a means to understand the social significance of the designed environment and everyday life. The central objective of his research activities is to perform critical cultural analyses of objects, thereby expanding their accepted meanings in industrial design discourse. He is the Vice-Chair of the Arizona Chapter of the Industrial Designers Society of America. Prasad is currently working on a book titled Designing Things: A Critical Introduction to the Culture of Objects, to be published by Berg Press in the UK in 2007.
Prasad’s statement of provocation:
What is India? An emerging market? A nation with a burgeoning middle class that desires the latest designs? A land of more than a billion people who need design to solve problems of poverty, shortages of clean ground water, illiteracy and poor sanitation? A country of skilled artisans who produce objects of immense and timeless beauty?
Engaging India through design will not be easy. It will require, among other things, concerted effort, respect for tradition, new methodologies, an understanding of cultural context and respect for diversity.
Are we ready?
