What if patterns could speak across cultures without needing translation?
This talk explores how a traditional design systems like Kolams can encode rich, algorithmic logic that connects with other global practices like Islamic geometry and Truchet Tiles. By treating these cultural patterns as knowledge systems rather than artifacts of the past, we can use technology not to explain or flatten them, but to open new pathways for shared learning and creative collaboration.
Biography
Lavannya (LAV) is a designer and technologist exploring the intersections of culture, algorithms, and creative practice. A former faculty member at Parsons School of Design, her work focuses on how everyday rituals and cultural knowledge systems, especially those underrepresented in modern scientific frameworks, can inform and shape technology.
Her research centers on algorithmic patterns, intercultural systems, and collaborative tools for creators. Through software and programming, she experiments with structures that prioritize creative logic over reproduction. Her work on Kolams has been featured in the Critical Coding Cookbook, the 2023 Open Source Arts Contributors Conference (OSACC), and during her research fellowship at the India China Institute, where she studied methods used by women to create daily Kolams.
Lav believes in dissolving the boundaries between art and science and is continually drawn to practices rooted in nature, community, and cultural continuity.
- https://criticalcode.recipes/contributions/kolam-in-code
- https://www.indiachinainstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Lavannya-Suressh-Kolam-.pdf
Conference Speaker (Sheffield)
Israac, Sheffield