XPERIMENTER PROGRAMME
Science Gallery Bengaluru’s Xperimenter Programme offers young adults the chance to interact with leading experts working in diverse disciplinary fields. Through a series of workshops, proseminars, and mentorship meetings, the Xperimenters develop skills in writing, communication, design thinking, and more.
The Xperimenters, a group of four dynamic young adults, also advise SGB on our public engagement priorities. They serve as ambassadors to the gallery, and help in shaping public programmes by bringing young voices to the forefront. The Xperimenter Programme of 2021–2022 involved four young adults who conceptualised, developed, and facilitated individual public engagement programmes during our exhibition-season PSYCHE.
Interested in become a part of the Xperimenter Programme? Register your interest here.
THE XPERIMENTERS (2021–2022)
The pilot Xperimenter Programme was recently selected as a finalist for the Falling Walls Future Learning category.
The 2022 Xperimenters came from a variety of disciplines—from design to economics and political science to chemistry. As a cohort, they worked individually as well as with each other to create different public engagement programmes at the gallery. Through their six month journey, they each kept an online journal to record their experience, and to reflect upon the work they were doing. These are open access, and you can view each of them below.
Arjun Yadav
Arjun holds an undergraduate degree in communication design from the Indian Institute of Art and Design. Although his background is in visual design, he has a keen passion for human-computer interaction (HCI). During his penultimate year at the institute, he stumbled upon creative coding and prototyped many HCI ideas.
Arjun created a game for PSYCHE, housed in our Media Lounge. The game, coded from scratch, built upon Maslow's hierarchy of human needs, a popular albeit contested theory within psychology. Through the game, people moved through gamified levels of human needs but also encountered each need simultaneously. This prompted larger discussions on human desires, basic needs, and happiness.
Mentors: Gautham Dayal, R Ramanujam, Shashi Thutupalli
📖 Read more about Arjun’s Journey.
✍🏻 Read about Arjun’s takeaways.
Jyotsna Iyer
Jyotsna is a third and final-year undergraduate student at St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi. Apart from pursuing her interdisciplinary degree in Political Science and English Literature, she works in the intersection between technology and humanities and has a keen interest in data journalism/visualisation.
She created a workshop focussing on the creative process used by artists, filmmakers, curators, writers, and more. To understand the daily practices these practitioners undertake to channel their creativity, she organised interviews with filmmaker Nilita Vachani, artist Anuj Malhotra, and film producer Katayoun Dibamehr. She spoke to them about toxic work culture, its mental health concerns, and their unique takes on creativity and the mind.
Mentors: Abhishek Hazra, Anjum Hasan, Sanjeev Jain, Suchitra Balasubrahmanyan
Samyukta Prabhu
Samyukta is pursuing her Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. Previously, she worked with healthcare startups at Villgro, a social enterprise incubator in Bengaluru. She has studied Economics, Finance, and Media Studies at Ashoka University.
During PSYCHE, she was interested in understanding the impact of social media on young adults. Originally conceptualised as a board game, her workshop involved an interactive component where participants collaboratively reimagined a specific social media platform. They understood the business models behind the platform, the addictive qualities, as well as the features that could transform it. To guide this process, she brought in two experts—technology and ethics researcher Divyansha Sehgal, as well as psychologist Mohammad Swaroop.
Mentors: Gautham Dayal, R Ramanujam, Sanjeev Jain, Surabhi Sharma
Snehaja Venkatesh
Snehaja did her Master's degree in Organic Chemistry at SDM College, Ujire, Karnataka. Along with her academic pursuits, as a member of the World Esperanto Youth Organisation, she has organised many cultural and educational events. She is keen on combining both her interests to explore the role of languages in science. Currently, she teaches Chemistry at Presidency College, Hebbal.
For her public engagement project, she explored non-human animals and their psyche. She created an event that brought together behavioural biologist Anandita Bhadra, theatre practitioner Rency Philip, and psychologist Rex Joseph. Together, they discussed our curious relationship with dogs. Snehaja also moderated the Kannada lectures conducted during PSYCHE.
Mentors: Arundhati Raja, Gautam Menon, Sarah Iqbal, Suchitra Balasubrahmanyan
📖 Read more about Snehaja’s journey.
WORKSHOP AND SEMINAR FACILITATORS
The training sessions held for the Xperimenters consisted of workshops that allowed them to develop some of the skills required for public engagement. We also held seminars with experts from the fields of art, science, and public engagement. These sessions were conducted during the first three months of the programme, so that the Xperimenters could bring the things they learnt into their public engagement project.
Art/Science Practice
Claudia Schnugg
Curator
Claudia Schnugg, curator of art and science collaboration, shed light on the current practices used within this interdisciplinary field. It brought the Xperimenters into a global conversation on art and science practice.
Writing Workshop
Karthik Ramaswamy
Science Communicator
In this three hour long workshop, Karthik Ramaswamy took the Xperimenters through the nuances of good writing—from sentence structure and paragraph placement to tautologies and action words. Together with this training and his mentorship, the Xperimenters were able to write robust proposals fro their public engagement ideas.
Facilitation Methods
Katrina Enros
Engagement and Facilitation Expert
This workshop took the Xperimenters through the basics of virtual facilitation: how to keep people engaged in an online format, as well as activities that foster teamwork. This was a necessity given that PSYCHE was a digital exhibition-season.
A second workshop with Katrina Enros focused on in person facilitation, and ways to make an event comfortable, safe, and fun for the audience.
Public Engagement with Science
Jennifer Wong
wHAT
Jennifer Wong spoke about the many public engagement projects she has designed and run, specifically about Guerilla Science, a project that finds creative and transformative to engage with science. This session opened up a more global conversation on the idea of science and art engagement.
Public Engagement with Science in India
Sarah Iqbal
Science Engagement Specialist
This session pondered upon the place of science engagement in India, and the various methods being used to facilitate the same.
THE MENTORS
We brought together a collegium of scientists, artists, writers, filmmakers and more to mentor the Xperimenters. The Xperimenters were free to choose three to four mentors who best suited their goals and ideas with their public engagement projects. Through monthly (sometimes more) meetings, the mentors guided the Xperimenters through their journey at the programme.
