Prathima Muniyappa

Artist bio

Prathima is a designer, artist and conservator in the space enabled research group at MIT Media Lab, Massachusetts. Her PhD thesis focuses on enabling agency and self representation for indigenous people in the conservation of indigenous knowledge. Her research investigates alternative cosmologies for their potential to contribute to the emerging discourse on techno-imaginaries in the realm of space exploration, synthetic biology and extended intelligence.

Prathima’s work (exhibited here) explores the myths of the cosmos, studying ancient wisdom about cosmology, learning from tribes across the world, whether it's in the Lichnananthay people of the Chilean Atacama or the Maasai of Kenya. She is learning from the incredible Khasi community in Meghalaya whose practice of building living root bridges provokes us to imagine alternative ways to conceive of architecture, as structures that are grown rather than built or assembled. She is moved by the interconnectedness of all living matter and this theme is deeply embedded in her work.

Prior to MIT, she has completed her masters in Design Studies in Critical Conservation at The Graduate School of Design, Harvard, under a Full Bright Scholarship. She also holds a B-Des from National Institute of Design, India, and is a Young India Fellow 2013-14