Navigating through the CEPT campus

Visitors to CEPT University are in for a treat. The students are planning to turn campus tour maps and handouts into an innovative medium to promote a dying folk art from Ahmedabad. The maps have been drawn in the style of ‘Mata ni Pachedi’ – an expression of art by the nomadic Devipujak community. Namrata Toraskar and Yusuf Chiniwala who are studying for Masters in Interior Architecture and Design along with Rajvi Patel and Aditi Agarwal, who are studying for Bachelors in Interior Design are behind the idea.

Navigating through the CEPT campus
Navigating through the CEPT campus - The exhibition ‘Aapnu CEPT’ presents a story of activities in CEPT University campus in the traditional folk art style of ‘Mata ni Pachedi’. Historically associated with the nomadic Vaghari community of Gujarat, these fabric paintings based on the theme of the mother Goddess have been used as their shrine for ages. Through the map, the exhibit provides an explicit visual counterpart to the implicit spatial narrative of the campus and the life of the students within it. Its collaterals include signages of the various spaces within the campus, a campus tour map handout for new visitors in the campus and a characterization of the five faculties of CEPT University. While generating its contemporary interpretative version, the challenge of the project was to decode ‘Mata ni Pachedi’ in its constituencies with respect to the composition, colour balance, visual density etc. Also, its usage as a campus tour handout demanded a visual narration that can be universally interpreted by the students as well as the outsiders visiting the campus. © Namrata Toraskar, Rajvi Patel, Aditi Agarwal, Yusuf Chiniwala Instructors: Rishav Jain, Kathan Kothari


The students were inspired after studying about the art in their elective ‘Narrating stories through crafts’ last semester. Namrata, who is in her second year, says, “This style was chosen for the campus tour map of CEPT University because it is a local narrative craft form of Ahmedabad. Hence it will be apt to tell stories of activities on the campus. By presenting an insider’s story of the students’ life within CEPT University in the style of ‘Mata ni Pachedi’, the project seeks to bring forth the story-telling quality of a traditional art form to narrate a contemporary story.

Thus the base idea was to use this folk art to create a central identity in the signage system.” In the map, the style signifies the student characterization of the five departments: Architecture, Design, Planning, Technology and Management. Unlike a graphical, two-dimensional map that shows only the placement of buildings and access roads, the campus tour map describes the activities of the campus users -- students, faculty members, and even the dogs and birds. The students received help from faculty members Rishav Jain and Kathan Kothari along with teaching assistant Shemal Pandya.