By Anurati Srivastva
Chasing Curiosities
I was always a curious kid, bubbling with infinite questions about the world and its billion eccentricities. Science, fiction and art were the domains that most interested me, with opportunities of multiple ‘what ifs’ and ‘why nots’. Growing up, building a career has been much less of ‘taking measured steps to achieve a certain goal or outcome’, and more about following my curiosities with the truest of intentions.
I work at the intersection of design, technology, and education, and I would best describe myself as a new media artist and experience designer who creates narratives and experiences for learning, play, and social awareness. Currently, I work at UNESCO MGIEP, where I put my skills of UI/UX design, instructional design, game design, narrative design, and illustration towards promoting social-emotional learning (SEL) for children. In short, I’ve been following the design question of: how might we reimagine education to create a future generation of kind, compassionate, and critical thinkers?
Connecting the Dots
Growing up, I thoroughly enjoyed the sciences and languages and reserved a passion for reading and painting. My family and I weren’t exposed to a wide array of career and academic options. In those days (am I old enough to use this phrase yet?), if you excelled academically, it was obvious that you’d pick the sciences, and either become an engineer or a doctor. Pursuing arts was for the rebels, the drifters, and for students who weren’t considered intellectually sound enough for the apparent mental gymnastics of science and math.
I pursued an integrated dual degree with a Master’s in Biological Sciences and a Bachelor’s in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from BITS Goa. I quickly realized that I wouldn’t want to pursue only pure sciences or pure engineering, and luckily for me, there were plenty of electives at my university that one could take up. Like a kid greedy for knowledge, I stacked my electives with diverse courses such as psychology, cinematic arts, modern fiction, product management, and even Hindustani Classical Music, in the quest of finding all the things that I could do. During my last year of a college internship, I chose to intern as a UI/UX designer for start-ups in the space of ecommerce and robotic automation. Soon, I was disillusioned by the capitalist machinery driving forward these startups in the first place. Driving sales through design wasn’t satisfying anymore. I wanted to make a more meaningful impact beyond my own sphere of influence. This period of disenchantment overlapped with my selection as a Young India Fellow at Ashoka University, a yearlong course on liberal studies and leadership delivered by the best academicians and practitioners of the world. I thoroughly enjoyed the intellectual and creative immersion of courses ranging from art appreciation and culture to political economy and history while interacting with people who had their own quirky career trajectories. It gave me a thinking playground in a sense, a space where I could explore the connection between Bollywood and the economic liberalization of India, or the connection between colonialism and the history of desire, all the while enabling me to question the frameworks of education that were placed by someone else for me when I was in school, which takes years of reflection as an adult to unlearn, unpack, and understand.
After graduating from YIF, I joined Katha, a 30-year-old NGO working in the field of education and publishing. As the Products Lead, I was tasked with the project of transitioning their classroom storytelling pedagogy into a more accessible digital platform for low-income communities. With frugal resources but tons of good heart, I led a team of 5 designers and developers, and over 10 volunteers to create KathaKhazana, a storytelling app for 4-12-year-olds on the themes of equity, social justice, and inclusion.
I realized that I loved the spirit of interdisciplinary collaboration and designing playful learning experiences for children. I did an illustration project at UNESCO MGIEP, where impacting at a larger scale and even at the policy level, was a possibility. Soon, I joined them as an Associate Project Officer, and ever since, I’ve co-designed experiences on global citizenship, art appreciation, and grief awareness that also impart SEL skills. Most of my projects are based on digital games, and I look forward to exploring games that can enable us to think, reflect and help build empathy.
What next?
I intend to continue designing playful and meaningful learning experiences for children through both formal and informal systems; to design tools, stories, and experiences for kids that help them reimagine their own future or deal better with their realities. I wish to push my own boundaries as an individual, because I think that I’m achieving a personal comfort zone, which clashes with my personal motto no. 1, “never become complacent.”
(Email me at anuratisrivastva@gmail.com for the full book of personal mottos).
Words of Wisdom (WOW)
Carving a career is not a monolithic sequence, but a shape-shifting series of events and reflections to answer your own desires. We cannot see too far into the future, but we can jump from one curiosity to the other. More often than not, the currency of imagination is exceedingly higher than the one of knowledge and money.
The most important skill that one can learn in life is learning how to learn. One can learn through everyday conversations, books, places, experiences, provided that we retain open-mindedness and humility.
Self-awareness and resilience are important when attempting to do something that others say that you cannot do. Two questions worth considering when you’re defining your goals: i) Why do you want to do ‘x’? ii) What life experiences make YOU the right person to do ‘x’?
Always trust your inner child. As a child, I used to spend hours creating flash games, interactive stories on PowerPoint, pixel art, editing videos for my YouTube channel...Guess what? I’m STILL pretty passionate about doing those things.
Be fearless in discarding all the ideas or prejudices around your identity as perceived by others. Nothing is set in stone unless you decide that is. We can start from scratch anytime, and there is no set starting or ending point of one’s career trajectory, it is more of a Jeremy Bearimy Timeline ;)
Checkout my website to know more details about my design process and art work: https://www.anuratisrivastva.com/
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