Bhumika Ahuja

Bhumika Ahuja is a student of Textile Design at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad. Currently based in Delhi, she has been involved in a government project for the upliftment of rural textile artisans and has interned as a graphic and textile designer. She has skills in print and papermaking, handloom weaving, dyeing, sewing and embroidery. This grant enables Bhumika and her collaborators to explore the history of social media in India over the past 25 years through embroidery on textile and stop motion animation.         

In 1999, the world was introduced to Yahoo! Messenger. On its heels, came other social media platforms such as Skype, YouTube, Facebook, Orkut, Reddit, Twitter, Instagram, Quora, Snapchat, Tinder and TikTok. These platforms are ever-growing and have constant updates that keep the social media space perpetually dynamic. As designers who share a keen interest in textiles and are avid users of social media, Bhumika and her collaborators would like to experiment with and explore the endless potential of the age-old textile technique of embroidery to tell their story of social media in India.

The project will begin with gathering primary and secondary data on people’s experiences with social media. This would include their stories, experiences, viewpoints and varied perspectives. Following this, a process of ideation where these different narratives are laid down will enable a storyline with characters. A storyboard with 100 frames will be prepared, which will be embroidered on 100 pieces of textile. The embroidered pieces will come together as a single fabric, and documented to make the stop motion animation film.

The deliverables from this project will be detailed a documentation of the embroidered textile and the stop motion animation film.

This grant is made possible under the special initiative 25x25, with support from lead donor Kshirsagar-Apte Foundation, and philanthropy partners, Titan Company Limited, Priya Paul, and Sethu Vaidyanathan.