Since I decided I wanted to pursue bachelor's in architecture four years ago , dioramas were something I was always looking forward. I have always been fond of miniature models and so , wanted to make one myself and let metell you how fun and therapeutic the whole making of this diorama was.
For this particular assignment there were four groups and those four groups were assigned with one tribe each from around the globe. Ours was on the Himba tribe of Namibia. Quite an interesting tribe to study about let me give you that. Each and every single time I researched about this tribe I found something new everytime. And the people of Himba tribe , how much more beautiful could they get ? I was blown away with their amazing looks and what they did to preserve their beauty.
Our group worked together on different topics. The first one being a documentary style video. We found photographs from the internet ( as obviously none of us have been there ,sadly. But hopefully some day we get to do that, together! ) and did a voiceover from the script that we wrote ourselves. Our professor loved our video a lot (obviously, hehe). Making the video was interesting and fun ( fun cause I love researching , I have thirst of knowledge which I know will never be quenched ). My good friend and group mate - Jeswin knew how to edit on Adobe premiere pro and so the responsibility of editing was on him.
The second exercise was to make the diorama and so we had a week to work on this. We had to work on this in between Christmas ,which is sad but we love doing this so it didn't feel like work at all.
We were also supposed to research on gender and power in the Himba community and make a presentation on the same. And as always I was the one who had to research ,cause let's be real I can do the digging of information better than anyone in my group and so I did. But none of the other groups knew about this and they didn't prepare one so we have another free week , so that's that.
Let's talk about the process of making of the diorama.
Let me get started on what materials did we use
- cardboard
- Thermocol
- Rice flour
- Sand
- Twigs
The total cost came upto only ₹180 ($2.40) ( yes I know that's super cost effective) . I'm super proud of how much we actually spent on making the model and for the record it actually turned out so damn realistic and I couldn't be more happy and proud of the outcome. It actually turned out to look how it played in my head.
What we were supposed to show in our model -
Settlement
Terrain
People (which we will work on really soon)
We worked on it for four hours straight. All of us had so much fun together while making this. We first went and bought all the materials and then sat and made them. Intially the plan was to add human figurines as well but then we were too tired and were running out of time so had to pass on that for the time being.
We mixed the rice flour and laterite soil together and made the terrain and everything else. We showed the community, as you can see in the photographs that I took this morning in the class.
Our professor was really happy with our model. She liked the fact that it looks so realistic and how it was cost effective. And yes I know you have the question in mind about how would we preserve the rice dough now ? Right ? We will spray a disinfectant probably and that would help.
Overall the diorama turned out super amazing and I'm super proud of us. For the next two activities it is on the same tribe. One is to work on the storyboard - our professor asked us to either make sketches or make a stop motion video ( we'll probably go for the latter) And the last one is to design an outfit inspired by our particular tribe. We are quite excited and thrilled to work on this.
I am aware that I have been MIA for a long time now. But I have been trying to manage time with my architecture school. It just gets difficult and I'm new to this so I'm trying to figure it out. Hopefully I learn how to manage my time well and if you all know how then please share it with me. Hope you are doing good and I'll see you all in my next post. Hopefully soon.