Re-imagining Tsunami Recovery in
the Andaman islands
the Andaman islands
My collaboration with King's College and Sophie Blackburn began in 2014, when I was her field assistant for her PhD during interviews with communities in Little Andaman island, India. This Arts-Science project for communicating PhD results to interview participants has helped me to push my trans-disciplinary background of being in the position of a researcher and to be able to communicate the scientific findings in the simplest possible way from the eyes of a storyteller. The first big challenge was to simplify the findings into visuals in a way that did not undermine the importance of the results itself.
The second and bigger challenge was to be on field and disseminate the results in-person and get immediate feedback in the form of the target audience’s reactions. In
the age of hyper-connectivity, visual content is often designed for delivering messages that might reach audiences through digital and print media as and when they come
across it. They often cater to larger (often literate) audiences and have little to do with their past and personal lives.
the age of hyper-connectivity, visual content is often designed for delivering messages that might reach audiences through digital and print media as and when they come
across it. They often cater to larger (often literate) audiences and have little to do with their past and personal lives.
The deliverable for this project was meant to immediately tell the target audience about what Sophie had found in her study, based on their personal and sometimes traumatic experiences. The results described how their lives had been shaped first, by the tsunami, and then by their own decisions combined with governance bodies that were enlaced with power relations. This was a huge responsibility and an experience that has added value to my understanding of how to better communicate with responsibility. Lastly, the project has pushed me to rethink the value in funded projects coming from a privileged setting and going to the field in less privileged parts of the world.
Animated story shown as preview to the dissemination workshop to island residents
who were once affected by the 2004 tsunami disaster.
who were once affected by the 2004 tsunami disaster.
Participant creates a story of the tsunami disaster that took place in 2004 and reimagines the future through the support of illustrated story cards.
Special screening of the film at the village head's and his family
Viewing of the film in one of the two villages
