Lost in Translation:
Rethinking Expressions of Care across Distances
As a first-gen Indian immigrant, I’ve felt the weight of staying connected—losing touch with family over time and grappling with an unfamiliar grief. Many Asian cultures express care through action rather than words, yet digital communication still prioritizes verbal cues.
In a world where connection is more accessible than ever, why does distance still feel so vast?
My thesis explores intergenerational and intercultural communication within Asian immigrant families, focusing on how distance shapes emotional connection.
External Links
Coming Soon
Growing Pains: A Living Grieveyard
Grieveyard, a ritual space where participants write reflections on seed paper, plant them, and witness new life grow. First piloted in a wheelbarrow at Brooklyn Bridge Park, Grieveyard now lives on as a permanent garden bed in a local community space.
Service Design, Coming Soon
Wisps
In long-distance relationships, it’s easy to feel like memory is something that only happens after loss. Wisps reimagines memory as something we can actively create by living for, with, and through one another, even across space.
Digital Product Design, Coming Soon
Kin.Nect
Kinnect is a digital archive designed to build emotional understanding across generations in Asian immigrant families. It collects letters, reflections, artwork, and memories from a wide range of community voices—organized by perspective. Users explore emotional experiences from the viewpoint of parents or children, creating space to see familiar struggles and hopes through new eyes.
Smart Object, Coming Soon
Anchor
Anchor is a smart keychain designed to create quiet moments of connection in long-distance or emotionally distant relationships. When a user hangs up their keys, their paired Anchor lights up in their loved one's space, offering a simple, non-intrusive signal: "I’m home."
Participatory Research Workshop, Coming Soon
Branching Out
Facilitation of a participatory research workshop with activities around mapping identity, collective collaging of experiences and using spectrums to understand changes in both individual as well as familial relationships.
Held in-person as well as virtually.