Native Place (a term used to mean `place of birth or origin in South India) is a Bengaluru based collaborative studio that works with information and experience design to create new formats in place-based storytelling so people can connect to place and navigate it more meaningfully. These place-based interventions include community art engagements, workshops, story walks and tours that support an understanding of how the city’s present is influenced by its historical and cultural legacies.
INFORMATION DESIGN: content and design development, research and documentation for book publication projects, travel, heritage and culture-based collateral and online applications.
EXPERIENCE DESIGN: curated place-based community engagements and interactions: urban history story walks and culture tours, arts practice-based, place-making projects.
Native Place was founded in 2013 by Aliyeh Rizvi while walking through cities around the world to uncover local secrets as a travel and history-writer. She is a researcher and curator who was till recently a special invitee to the Bangalore Tourism Advisory Committee (BTAC), initiated by the Ministry of Tourism, GoK. While working as Curator, Centre for Public History, Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology she co-facilitated a successful Public History Project titled `The Tiger Comes to Town' in collaboration with the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to commemorate their 150th anniversary. She has also been a contributing writer for the National Geographic Traveler India and other leading publications, including the Bangalore Mirror (TOI Group) where she was also a weekly columnist on Bengaluru's local culture and history for over 2.5 years. She is the author of 'Another World', a coffee-table book on the social history of the Bangalore Cantonment. She is often invited to speak about her work on curating the city, collecting and re-narrating its stories. She does so to protect the Bangalore she was born in from vanishing.
Aliyeh Rizvi
Founder, Native Place
Aliyeh lives to travel and collect stories of people and place. Before setting out to do this fulltime, she worked in a curatorial position at Srishti, as Associate Editor- Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy and on brand communication strategies in advertising. She has also written and directed for children’s theatre.
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Nirlek Dhulla
Visual Documentation & Photography
Nirlek is the founder of dejaview, a photography studio where he works on documentation projects and editorial assignments for travel and culture. You will often find him walking through city streets, driving off road or hanging out with strangers as he collects stories and watches life unfold.
Visual Documentation & Photography
Sameer graduated with a diploma in professional photography from the Hallmark Institute of Photography in Turners Falls, Massachusetts where he received the Award for professional portfolio excellence. He was a recipient of the Toto Funds the Arts – Tasveer, Emerging Photographer of the Year 2015.
Street Art, Illustrations
Poornima is a muralist, illustrator, and documentary photographer. She graduated from the Chitrakala Parishat and has also taught design modules at The National Institute of Design (NID) Ahmedabad. She uses art in public spaces to engage youth voices and create awareness of social issues and is the founder of The Aravani Art Project,
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Dejaview
Visual Documenation
We collaborate with dejaview, the photography studio, on travel, culture documentation and editorial projects. dejaview aims to build compelling visual narratives that create a sense of having previously experienced something actually being encountered for the first time.
The Oota Company
Food Walks & Experiences
As a part of our `City is a Classroom' project that attempts to understand cultural landscapes in the city, we partner with The Oota Company on the exciting Nagarthapete Night Food Walk that introduces you to an old city area through its street food and stories of place and people.
Arzu Mistry
We partner with Arzu Mistry for The Memory Maps Project. Arzu is an educator, ecologist, visual artist, and dancer. She maintains a high level of dedication and enthusiasm for the arts, as mediums for pedagogy, advocacy, transformation, and intervention for the building of sustainable inclusive communities. Her practice connects educators, youth and families with place using memory, story, play and art making through interdisciplinary education and public community art /ecology projects, livelihoods training, teacher professional development and educational research and practice.
Architects, Urbanists and Technologists
sensinglocal is a team of highly skilled architects, urban planners and design professionals led by Ankit Bhargav and Sobia Rafiq who collaborate with us on ideas, concepts and future directions for place based projects in Bengaluru city.
Creative Mornings, Breakfast Lecture series. Also presented at Gyan Adda, National Institute of Design, Bangalore