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Genre Of Impact
Culture, Crafts & Social Innovation
The biggest challenge for artisanal crafts and local arts are not skill, but rather marketability, branding, storytelling and entrepreneurial innovation. India has an unbound wealth of crafts and arts which have been the darlings of the world for centuries. Colonial exploitation, inadequate attention and lack of policy focus have meant that many of these crafts, arts and communities suffered. But, entrepreneurial thinking, inventive social business models, market linkages and design thinking can help such communities and artisans (as also such regions) make their wares and products into marketable, economic brands.
PROBLEM
A large hospitality chain was finding it difficult to procure custom ceramic wares and functional wares for its hotels and restaurants and was told by the parent group to go in for “off the shelf” products – which meant they couldn’t be unique / custom pieces, which signature spaces or luxury addresses often demand. The chain’s business was neither ceramics nor running studios.
Secondly, the hospitality chain didn’t have experimental and experiential spaces (other than the usual suspects of restaurants and spas) that could reimagine the guest experience by making them learn a craft, an art and produce something tangible with maestros or produce something artisanal from which it could yield new commerce.
INSIGHT
The right experiential space / independent artisanal studio set in the right market could help blend the skills of artisanal makers with modern designers and produce small batch, artisanal pieces that are both functional and decorative. This could also be an experiential studio for the hospitality chain’s luxury customers.
The right opportunity, if it can be created and designed (by converging market, talents, experience, space and collaborations), can help turn this problem into a fantastic opportunity and sustainable commerce through culture. It could also help be a platform to discover master local artisans.
ACTION
The co-founders of NYUCT Design Labs saw this challenge as a great opportunity to design and build a social business innovation when they were working on a luxury project at Surajkund. They decided to build a live collaborative studio and retail experience called Folk Studio. The produce was small batch, artisanal ceramics.
Here, master local craftsmen and artisans had live on-site collaborations with modern ceramic masters and artists to create a private label of ceramics. These inspired demand from corporate houses and in-house guests as also sister hotels which wanted to buy these pieces for their premises or as corporate gifts. The Folk Studio not only had other luxury hotels within the group as its customers but also brands like Pirelli and Tata Telecom shopping here for their festival gifting. Folk Studio became the centre of earthcraft workshops for the luxury resort and its guests. The centre also collaborated with brands to present unique festivals and residential programs.
RESULTS
Innovation is not always an outcome of big-box technology nor necessarily involves the board room. On the contrary, innovation best happens on the shopfloor and in incremental steps where one can join dots to solve a problem or create a whole new product / experience. Or at times, invent a whole new business model. What is most critical for innovation and impact is a willingness to experiment and break some so-called conventions.
An industry innovation, Folk Studio was a first-of-its-kind model that not only supplanted traditional notions about hospitality spaces but also created monetisable program-innovations and new retail. It opened new opportunities for the master craftsmen and their wares to access new markets and customers.
Folk Studio is equally an example of how spaces and culture can be leveraged to produce highly marketable products and transformative experiences and also preserve a rich community tradition like pottery that constitutes the country’s soft capital.
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Swamy as he is fondly called, understands grassroots enterprise through two lenses – first as an advanced diploma recipient in molecular diagnostics further to an Msc. in biotechnology and second as the founder of a social enterprise called Kaskom, a farm to fabric collective that is revitalising India’s native cotton value chain. His passion for social enterprise and agro-ecology that weaves in local communities & practices runs deep. As does his understanding of the circular economy. He is also the Vice President at the Organic Farming Association of India (OFAI). He is involved in developing the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for all activities from seed to fabric, for the Indian short stapled indigenous cotton, along with Gandhigram Khadi Dindigul & Gram Seva Mandal, Wardha.
Swamy has conducted numerous workshops around the revival of organic practices and indigenous cotton, held several lectures apart from being a core participant in impactful programs. These include “Reviving community based indigenous seed systems” funded by SWISS-AID India, exploring linkages between weather parameters, paddy cultivation and adaptation activities in collaboration with Earthnet Foundation, Thailand, state coordination of “Save our rice campaign” in Karnataka and the “Community biodiversity management and conservation programme” funded by GGF.
Creative. Honest. Relevant. Be it a campaign, product design or a whitepaper,
Aakanksha’s mantra has never failed her. An alumna from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts – Singapore, specialised in design, media and animation, Aakanksha is first and foremost a storyteller, with a decade of experience developing brands across industries through consumer insights, advertising, marketing, branding, and content strategy. Conscientious and driven, Aakanksha prefers to use her creativity and understanding of human behaviour to craft impactful deliverables that do good. This has proven particularly beneficial for impact projects like Domex’s #ToiletForBabli and India’s Darwaza Band (Swachh Bharat campaign). She has worked with Lowe Lintas and The Glitch, with a portfolio comprising Flipkart, Tanishq, Carlsberg, Mumbai City FC, World Bank, Magnum Ice-cream, Arrow, and more. She has also worked on the Taj, Betterplace Safety Solutions, Nestaway, Botbot.al, and 2359Media.
Having spent over 25 years curating and designing high-end experiences and advising sustainable ventures, Philippa is passionate about discovering stories, culture and people and uses her empathy and passion to manifest unboxed ideas. Shuttling between Yorkshire and India, she helps clients reimagine the possible. A destination development specialist and, having worked on both sides of the industry, a consultant both to leading tour operators as well as DMCs, she is also the author of Escape to India, a columnist and advisor to charities and NGOs. Her adventures are literally a novel – skiing, trekking, white-water rafting, riding priceless Marwari horses, fine-dining with Maharajas, driving vintage cars, sleeping under the stars, discovering new-to-her wildlife species & being off the beaten track. Think Lara Croft, out of the box.
We call him our IP man. Having worked on building brand platforms for iconic brands like Harley Davidson, Ray Ban, Jack Daniel’s, Hard Rock Cafe, Raymond & Taj, Arpito’s body of work has been versatile and at scale. With a long foundational strategy stint, early in his career, with the Times Group in the President’s office, Arpito went on to become the Group Director at Rolling Stone and Man’s World India, launching and giving the cult brand legs in the brand activations and IP space. A Times School of Marketing alumnus, he is a hodophile, music connoisseur and possesses an uncanny knack for creative brand solutions. He revels in his understanding of community platforms, across scale, having engineered and conceived several initiatives for leading global brands. He is also the chief consultant to the Ministry of Music & Arts, Govt. of Nagaland, a consultant with Drishti and has led several initiatives with government bodies and social organisations.
Narrative could well be Anil’s middle name, which expresses itself to telling effect across his diverse roles as an entrepreneur, impact specialist, director-filmmaker, IP producer, business manager, festival director and Corp. communication. His earlier stint as the Editorial Director at Going to School Fund, a creative not-for-profit education trust, saw him ideate and design impact programs, content around sustainability, seeding entrepreneurial skills amongst young students in government schools. His work is powered by his extremely diverse life experiences. As a journalist storyteller with Times of India, HT, DNA and Mid-day, learning filmmaking at UCLA, as an assistant director on the National Award-winning film Fashion, writing a coffee table book with India’s first Oscar-winner, the late Bhanu Athaiya, titled The Art of Costume Design, published by Harper Collins with a foreword by Lord Richard Attenborough, being the India director of the Manhattan Short Film Festival, the world’s first global short film festival, co-creating the VOTE FOR INDIA platform and more. A polymath experience and perspectives are what he brings to venture design.
