Content Portfolio
Shivani Pandya
Professional Undertakings
Curatorial Efforts
Interpretive Designer | Historic Cities Series Exhibition for DRONAH Foundation, Gurugram
The Historic Cities Series exhibition, presented by the DRONAH Foundation at the India Habitat Centre, was a tangible culmination of independently held discussions, think-tanks and symposia in over 25 cities.
Duties // Contributions
With a fluid roles and accountability system, the exact responsibilities were mutative. Some of what was undertaken for the exhibition goes as:
- Preliminary exhibition curation of the thematic intent and the conceptual brief
- Editorial assistance to the lead curator for all textual content
- Data collection, management, and sifting through a repository of pictures, archival documents, and narratives from over 25 cities, nationwide
- Coordination and outreach for all 26 participating cities
Exhibition Introduction Blurb Content | Historic Cities Series Exhibition
The City: A Narrative in Building
The cities we live in have been woven into multilayered, multicultural, multilingual, and multilateral societies. This has taken years and centuries to concretise its identity—the one known to us, now.
Currently, the world is suffering through a collective imagination crisis—one that could be easily solved if we could zoom out to a macro perspective and absorb the city.
Engage your analog senses and place yourselves in the tight streets and chowks in these maps, archival images, and drawings.
What do you remember most about a city?
What are your strongest memories of your city, or any other city you have visited? Relax and reflect in this memory chowk and leave a piece of your memory to share with all! Doodle, sketch, or jot down on the ‘Memory Tree’ or ‘Yaadon ka Paed’ to photosynthesise your narratives.
Moving
Streets, Living Stories
How does my city unfold?
The cities we live in have been woven into multilayered, multicultural, multilingual, and multilateral societies. This has taken years and centuries to concretise its identity—the one known to us, now.
Currently, the world is suffering through a collective imagination crisis—one that could be easily solved if we could zoom out to a macro perspective and take in some elements of the very cities we live in. Engage your senses and immerse yourselves in the vibrant urban clusters.
Design Writing and Communications
Communication and Design Writing | Epistle Communications, New Delhi
Beyond the simplistic ‘pandering to social media’ perception
Duties // Contributions
Managed accounts, data repositories, editorial and content strategies to shape brand-specific narratives for architecture and design collectives, all varying in scale and expertise
Architectural communications, through the 2 ½-year stint, churned out 3 primary learnings from 7+ architecture and design offices as branding clients, and a defining cornerstone for a professional journey in narrative-building
At the core, editorial strength and effective storytelling function as the principal tools of communication.
Modulating tone of voice and aligning the writing style with a brand’s vocabulary, while also anchoring expert nuances of the subject matter
Accessibility of language, concepts, and industry-specific subjects to express ideas that are often only discussed within the closed loops
Research Assistant
Research, Oral Histories Interpretations, Managing Archival Materials | Curating For Culture, Bangalore
Duties // Contributions
Family archives and oral history transcription projects to be culminated into an exhibition and a coffee-table book
An elaborate (and intentionally veiled) listing of the robust data collation for the project under a strict NDA
Essays and Personal Writings
Self-Published Essays
The title perhaps, is decidedly unusual since centipedes don’t run—or we usually don’t perceive them to be moving in faster patterns. Could be bordering on pretentiousness too. However, this is not about caterpillars, centipedes or any such crawlers. At least not directly.
It’s about slow progress. How, to me, it has never been a subject of significant concern, but it seems like the direct deterrent of progress in a fast-moving world.
Newspaper Submission | For The Hindu Lit Fest
The long and short of it is that hope is immensely demanding. Not for the disdainful, unreflective heart that lazes and refuses to dig deeper than what’s prepared and served. But, and it is not to be debated, as hope is as essential to world-sustenance as the food, air, people-participatory policies, friendships, or custodial care—the non-obligatory kinds only.
Magazine Submission | For Hammock Magazine
It is true about shared experiences. The books, songs, and fables stand true because all of us are reliving the templated lives. Seeking validation from others’ accounts of experiences is also, in the simplest of meta ways, a common experience. It is why we read, write, consume, and communicate. Every act of communication is a way to open oneself up; an invitation to let someone else in—direly hoping someone else wants in.
This, however, is not a theoretical discourse on media or literature and its consumption. This is, in fact, a mellow portrait of a very personal experience.