By Ranjita Biswas

Fulbright-Nehru Master’s Fellow Prathima Muniyappa’s career graph as a designer has been a “rather unconventional journey.”

“Despite my formal training as a designer,” she says, “my trajectory has led me to design museums, and work on the conservation of historic structures; as an anthropologist with indigenous communities; as an artist; and now in the realm of space exploration and social justice using designs enabled by space,” she says.

Muniyappa graduated from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, in exhibition design. After a year as a Young India fellow, she felt the need to delve deeper into conservation, “not simply from a technical perspective to learn how to preserve stone, brick, wood and mortar, but to begin to understand the underlying nuances behind the materiality of heritage.”