This year I finally went to the Digital Direction show at White City. It wasn’t just refreshing. It was mind-bending. It gave me access to emotional, technological, and spatial vocabularies I’d never touched during my own time here.

Zara’s project, an immersive VR experience based on the threapeutic power of colors which lets you paint in 3D space, left me stunned. I didn’t know VR projects could feel so engaging. I did some painting using a VR Brush for the first time using Tilt Brush. It was a beautiful expereince. I was stuck there with her project for an hour or more.

Then came Richa’s project on Himachal Pradesh, about climate change, tourism, and how beauty erodes when consumed with greed. Her visual storytelling carried grief, urgency, and affection for a landscape most people see only in postcards. Also, I have a personal connection with Himachal Pradesh. A few years ago I fell in love with a girl from Himachal when I was NID. So whenver I see a body of work bassed on Himachal, there a smile that naturally appears on my face. Anyway, the pahadi story is a story for another day.

There was another project about names, about the language and weight of being named, of liking or disliking your name. It resonated deeply. Naming is identity. And often, resistance.

I also saw heartbreak too (my favourite topic for art projects XD). A woman used monochrome and brushstrokes to express the ache of love lost. Abstract, quiet, but fierce. That’s the kind of vulnerability art school should protect.

Then there was Imagine an Art School; a project that made me rethink institutional value. It asked people what an ideal art school might look like. It reminded me that RCA is both brilliant and broken. Aspirational and unfinished. That tension is useful. I filled up a sheet he gave me with some sketches and writings.

Students from India, China, Africa, Europe, all gathered here. It wasn’t a melting pot. It was a mosaic. Everyone held their difference. Their origin. Their story.