2025 / Monsoon Sem /
Re-imagining the Vernacular TOI-5
Jay Thakkar (Tutor)
Kamna Vyas (Teaching Associate)
James Ajith Thomas, Kshitij Vipul Shah, Divya Atithi Natesh Kare, Rachana Vatyani, Samar Pratap Singh, Abhinav Nambiar, Anisha Dhirasaria, Trisha Ashish Gupta, Pavani Chawla, Amitesh Bhattacharya, Nehal More, Rajdeep Podder (Students)
The Reimagining the Vernacular studio explored the intersection of game design, storytelling, and vernacular culture, with a focus on Gujarat and Rajasthan. The studio encouraged students to investigate local architecture, crafts, and cultural practices to develop board games that served as educational and interactive narratives of these rich traditions.
Vernacular culture, deeply rooted in ways of life shaped by geography, climate, and socio-cultural values, formed the foundation of this multidisciplinary studio. Students engaged in fieldwork, documentation, and design exercises that fostered craft-design collaboration with artisans, historians, and cultural practitioners. By immersing themselves in traditional building crafts, folklore, and everyday cultural practices, they translated these experiences into innovative game formats.
The studio process integrated graphic design, storytelling, game mechanics, and vernacular architecture to create engaging board games that reinterpreted regional knowledge systems for contemporary audiences. Students refined their games through iterative prototyping, playtesting, and discussions to ensure both cultural authenticity and playability.
By the end of the studio, students had developed game-based storytelling tools that preserved and reimagined cultural wisdom, offering fresh perspectives on the living heritage of Gujarat and Rajasthan through the lens of game design.
