May 25 2023 to May 25 2023 6:30 p.m.

EVENT HAS ENDED

Where

Bangalore International Centre

7 4th Main Rd, Stage 2, Domlur 560071

Event Description

This talk presents some of the key contentions and contradictions at the core of historical research in type and typography, focusing on their particularly uneasy placement in the South Asian context. In doing so, it aims to question tacit assumptions, commonly accepted frameworks, and familiar paradigms in historical narratives: such as the designer as protagonist, the conception of design and technology as transformative interventions rather than ambivalent encounters, the portrayal of typographic labour as artistic achievement rather than socially negotiated practice, etc. Taking the processes of design and technology connected to typefaces for Indian languages as its point of departure, the talk offers a set of provocations for rethinking design-historical enquiry in social, political, and material terms today. Using instances from colonial Indian typographic history, its central argument is that uncritical, triumphalist narrative structures in historical research need to be surfaced and challenged. The aim is to open up discussions that can help situate typographic history as a layered field of analysis, with significant implications and wider connections that have remained largely unacknowledged in narratives with only aesthetic or technical preoccupations.