Open Jury at AOA - II

"Open Jury" event at AOA is an initiative to exchange ideas and reflections on student works across classes, departments and faculties. We had the second open jury yesterday. It was more of a review in the process stage.

The invited reviewers were to comment on students' process work. I feel it's pointless to call reviewers in process. It's like asking a pottery specialist to comment on the strength of a pot when it's still drying. Or like asking a chef when he's cutting the vegetables of how tasty the dish will eventually be...In such cases, you know what the feedback would be like.

Some classes decided to show their earlier projects. We (UA) felt that showing an earlier project right in the middle of another project is adverse on two grounds - one that you re-prepare to present your earlier project (a day spent in touching up earlier sheets) and second that you spend another day in something thats done long before and closed! So we decided not to have any special people and instead let our students see what others are doing...

Our principals like to keep the mood of the college upbeat. They keep on thinking of doing various things in college - like tamasha. I was reminded briefly of Sarita Vijayan at IAB - many said that she never bothered about the content of her magazine but kept on doing all sorts of nautanki - organizing events, seminars, launches, etc... 

The other day I met an absolutely beautiful human being - Vandana Sinh. She spoke to me of her recent participation at the NIASA awards. She was invited to a small place in the interiors of Maharashtra to choose the best architecture thesis projects amongst some 20 colleges which participated. These included city colleges along with the smaller towns. Without a doubt, the city colleges were far ahead in their thought, work and representation. The others were not even talking of issues around them...(The identity of such colleges appeared to her only later, since in the jury, the college names are not revealed). She said that she had, on perusal, absolutely rejected the entries of the smaller towns.

A girl from one of such places comes and asks her politely: "Ma'am, I wanted to know why my thesis wasn't selected amongst the final 10". Vandana looked up her file to read her comments on the girl's entry. She had written - "NO - X ". She felt absolutely guilty and without disclosing her sharp judgement, she asked the girl probably to recall her project. She then patiently spoke to her.

She then shared with me how bad she felt of her decision and judgement. She spoke of how under-exposed the kids in the smaller towns are. How un-motivating their faculties are...We spoke of our experiences of students from smaller towns (I spoke to her of my NIASA experience when I met students at Bhopal trying to take our autographs on winning the national award). We spoke of how sensitive students are, and "students are same every where", she said. She said how she would never do the mistake of rejecting a kid's work in future. But we were all very concerned of the under exposure of students in the interiors to issues and works around. Rohan (Shivkumar) once said to me (when I asked him - what's the point of organizing these seminars so frequently?) that "Anuj - students get to talk, they get to meet people, they want to meet new people"

Within these thoughts, I wanted to contextualize yesterday's jury. Our principal called fancy architects: Sanjay Puri, Ratan Batliboi, Chirag Jain etc. I wondered if there was any coherent agenda - all these reviewers are different schools of thought. What does the Academy want to think like? On questioning the team, it would be conveniently passed of as: "We wanted different points of view" - but I believe, that's an escape. We have to accept that we dont have a stand - it's always a pao bhaji - like our built environment. The physical condition of our environment is nurtured / begins at the school of architecture.

We refrained from calling any jury. Although, taking from Rohan's point, I felt, the students should absorb from others. That they might find some resonance and ideas from other panels. But I wonder how much are students from the urban areas interested in all this!? Only a few. The review would have been much successful if we called a college of Bhopal or Nashik or Lucknow to interact with ours. They would all sit together and talk to us - as a team. They would realize the value of discussions we have. Many of our kids take this time off to chew some more bubble gums and spend time at the canteen, giggle off jokes and not even note down a new comment in their books or sketch out a detail from a panel the liked, or connect to a senior on an idea, or get back to faculty on a comment he/she made...! Who is interested?

That's why I reject such grand gestures as 'tamashas'. They only feed into grandiloquent egos of our decision makers. Although they ask us for suggestions, they change or amend their decisions only peripherally to accommodate even our significant ideas - to make us feel happy! That's the kind of diplomacy I despise. So I keep myself away from meetings and suggestions. 

If this post seems to be too judgemental, I cant help it. This open jury at AOA (the second one in series) seemed least interactive to me. None of the internal faculties across departments really got time to see other work, the management is always a fuss, space was terrible (they covered up all open spaces to make them green houses, which were supported on bamboo framework that visually interjected all possible panels) - our comments muddled up in a lot of street noise - but i guess that was all desired - a part of the designed chaos. I hope the students made some meaning out of it.