When Vision Fades, Imagination Leads the Way: Manish Bhatt

Recently, at Ahmedabad Design Week 6.0 hosted by Karnavati University, I experimented by presenting blindfolded and even requested the audience to be blindfolded during the presentation.

Why? Looking at the line-up of presenters, I realized that the stage was going to shine with a sky full of stars. By their bright presence on the arena, I felt I had literally been blinded. Because when everyone was going to throw their light of knowledge, keeping myself in the dark is design. And when everything is dark, dream is design. When nothing is visible, imagination is design.

When nothing is visible, we creative people and designers use the power of imagination. We all know we are blessed with the power of imagination. In 2005, during the festival of colors, I saw a few blind children playing Holi in Nagpur. That was when I realized that some of us are not just blessed but born with the power of imagination.

From that point onwards, I started to present blindfolded and requested the audience to wear the blindfolds and imagine the world with me like those blind children. I walked along with them through the journey of imagination with 14 experimental audio pieces with absolutely no visual support.

I felt this tiny experiment of experiencing the darkness may help all of us because two unfortunate things may happen with all of us in the future:
1.⁠ ⁠Suppose due to global warming consequences, the sun stops rising for months like in Tromsø, Norway—we might start living in a dark era all over again.
2.⁠ ⁠Suppose due to these political constellations, we may be forced to enter into unwanted World War 3 situations, and many of us may have to start living in bunkers for months, and fuel and power may go out of stock—we might have to learn to live in the dark era once again.

During both hypothetical scenarios, nothing would be visible—there would be no reference of visuals. Should we stop designing then? Should we stop using design to solve the problems of our planet just because we formally learn design using visual references? Maybe we humankind would be reborn to use the power of imagination all over again.

Let’s learn to throw away the crutches of visuals or any such things—and let’s design using the pure power of imagination to solve the problems of our planet.

Thanks to Kapil, Yuvi, Nikhil, Varun, Doremi, Arunoday, Aaditya, Vinayak, Subhash, Mangesh, Vicky, Kuldeep & Team Scarecrow M&C Saatchi for helping me in preparing for this presentation.

Special Thanks to Team ADW 6.0 ( KU ) including Shivendra, Pravin, Anahita, Anup, Kavya, Aashna, Shruti, Eva to name a few for supporting this idea and being a true enabler.