Neelima Hasija
Location
Ahmedabad, India
About
Neelima Hasija, Principal Designer and faculty at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India, specializes in Ceramic and Glass Design and currently heads the International and Collaborative Programmes at NID. She holds a Fine Arts degree from M.S. University, Vadodara (1995), and an Advanced Entry Programme (AEP) equivalent to M. Des from the NID in Ceramic Design. With nearly three decades of experience across industry and academia, she has been part of NID's faculty since 2002. Her areas of interest & research include craft & community, material culture, social innovation, and applying systems thinking in design. Her teaching focuses on design fundamentals, craft research, design thinking and its application in the social sector and industrial design across ceramic and glass materials. As principal investigator and designer for several government-funded projects, Hasija has led fieldwork utilising ethnographic methods to map the context, facilitating and offering design sensitization workshops for communities through participatory methods, and developing products in the glass, terracotta/ceramic & other indigenous resources and community assets nationwide and in Africa. She has consulted with the centre and state governments and developed artisan sector strategies & roadmaps, curricula for craft & design studies, etc. Neelima has also extensively worked in research collaborations with the MSME sector. Her contribution reflects a deep commitment to craft heritage, design education, research and exploring socio-ecological sustainability through design. She has co-edited Indian Crafts in a Globalizing World (2017), co-curated the exhibition Center and Beyond (2018), and contributed to publications like Marg and Mrin—founder of ‘Madhyam, the Medium’, a platform exploring materiality in design. Over the past decades, her administrative roles at NID have included being a Senate and Academic Council member, leading Ceramic & Glass Discipline, Outreach Programmes and Design Services, International Centre for Indian Crafts, Strategy & Planning, Continuing Education Programmes and at present, International Programmes & Collaborations.
Artist Statement
Pottery in the Hills; Social Equity and Inclusion through Ceramics &
Design
The Indian crafts are a repository of culture, heritage, and traditional wisdom. Anchored in Indigenous
knowledge, diversity, community engagement and livelihood, they exemplify socio-economic
integration. The traditional craft community, a custodian of this legacy, have passed it from one to
another and ensured the continuity and economic value the practice brings to the region. The
traditional potters of India, including the Kumbhar , Prajapati and other indigenous communities
belonging to minority groups, are a core part of this segment. However, the sector has been facing
enormous challenges since industrialisation, disrupting the stability of rural economies, resulting in
the loss of cultural connections and unique regional heritage, impacting the continuity and, hence, the
community’s youth’s engagement and motivation to continue the practice.
In the early 1960s, at the inception of design education in the country, design embraced Indian
indigenous craft practices early on, recognising them as a stimulant and source of inspiration,
providing regional expression to contemporary products. Concurrently, the design also emerged as a
facilitator to aid continuity in craft practice through various interventions to aid dignity and
self-reliance for the communities.
1 Though well-meaning, it inadvertently caused damage, setting
hierarchies among both while emphasising the design community as the source of creativity and
innovation while the traditional craft community as the resource for making and production.
The author, craft researcher, and design practitioner have visited and documented indigenous pottery
practices in several Indian Himalayan regions, including the Northeastern region of the country and
Ladakh, the cold desert of India. She had an opportunity to interact and work with them over several
years through various government schemes/grants meant for the communities' socio-economic
development and well-being,
2 besides aiding their participation with design students through
education platforms. The engagement with these communities has led her to inquire about design
pedagogy and design practice while building strategies and interventions. A pertinent one in
contradiction to the established and widely accepted approach is whether the design could facilitate
the potter communities to re-discover and harness their creative potential, aid ownership and pride in
what they do. The paper will explore these queries through theory and case studies established through
her practice.