#blogtakeover ‘Learning with the Land’ SWISP Lab artist-in-residence Kriti Aggarwal

“I guess, I am a climate activist now?…”

2 Nov 8:46 AM

I wondered as I walked out from the grocery shop. After a three day workshop with SWISP Lab, I was walking back to my hostel when I had the sudden urge to drink something good. So, I went into the grocery shop, picked a nice small bottle of Coconut Water, and walked out. I opened the lid, took my first sip and realised, and that’s another contribution to the giant landfill in Tughlakabad. Wait, but I was thirsty. Was it not okay to drink a little sip? No, but I could have avoided this or got something else.. A million thoughts gushed into my head when I questioned myself and said, I guess I am a climate activist now?

These words are too big for me to say out loud.

A little bit about me

I am Kriti, a 21 year old visual artist and designer. I absolutely love to make art in different forms from paintings to tattoos. My interests as a graphic designer lie in type, publication and documentary filmmaking. I belong from a small city of Jalandhar in Punjab, India. I belong from the city where, when a nation-wide lockdown hit during Covid-19, within two months, we saw mountains. For the first time in my life I saw the Himalayas from my terrace with naked eyes. That only made me wonder what would happen if all of us were a little bit more conscious, or how the world must have looked if we were not here.

My Climate Story

I think I found my tipping point yesterday. Yesterday the entire country celebrated the most significant festival, Diwali. Diwali as I remember from my childhood was called the ‘festival of lights’, because everywhere you would see houses decorated with flowers, shops lit and beautiful with diyas. Its a festival associated with goddess Laxmi Pooja and is meant to be days of prosperity, love and ‘peace’. But yesterday I experienced the grave reality of diwali, in this regressing society. All I could see were flowers made out of plastic on sale, electronic diyas (so you don’t have to make the effort of lighting each one) and fireworks. The night of Diwali was horrendous as people in my lane burst a multitude of fireworks, breathing through the toxins and harming every single being, including themselves. My entire house was filled with smoke and I saw myself sitting in a mask talking to my friend as she exclaimed, “It feels like I am talking to someone in a dystopian world.” I guess this is it? Yes, this is it.

A photo of me sitting in the living room filled with smoke from the firecrackers 

The Plan of the Plan

In the last few years of my design education, I learnt the significance of having a voice as a designer. A voice which is not only loud, but rich with context and clean with intention. And I am getting the space to refine this voice, in the residency with SWISP while attending the workshop with CEEW, SGB and Socratus.

The first phase of the residency was the four day workshop and creating some graphics for the event. My approach to making graphics is to always study about what I am making. I collated my ideas into the visuals which looked cohesive with SWISP visual language as well.

Next was participating in the workshop itself. The four days were spent immersing in conversations of climate and sharing stories. There was so much to learn from engaging with people coming from different backgrounds. Below are some snippets of questions and notes i jotted down.

My plan here on is to take this inquiry forward and collate all of it into a publication of sorts. I strongly feel the need to open this discourse with young adults like me, and making this inquiry accessible to more people would be one of the ways to do it.

I am also planning to create artworks and posters in response to all my insights made during the time of the workshop. This is going to be one exciting journey to go on, reading, writing, reflecting and making.