Ria Yukta

Ria Yukta (she/her), is a trans-media designer based in London. Being an ambivert her work is an embodiment of the unsaid and unspoken. Her practice is a hybrid of analogue and digital mediums of design. Being a staunch believer of process emphasis, her approach is a tribrid of Interior, Product and Experimental Communication, giving precedence to materiality, sensory and hybrid mediums.

Currently she is collaborating with a Rak's Pallikkoodam, an International school in India to work on a progressive, comprehensive and multi-dimensional sex-education curriculum.

She is also a student ambassador for the RCA Art & Design Portfolio Development short course '23.

EDUCATION ||

2021 || BA (Interior and Spatial Design) | Lasalle College of the Arts,

2022 || Graduate Diploma (Communication) | Royal College of the Arts, London

The Birds + The Bees '23, is a passion project and a note to a very confused and impressionable 13 y/o Ria, growing up in a country that considered the topic of sex a taboo.

This project is an inquiry, a provocation and an ode to normalising, demystifying, and questioning the taboo, the shame and the stigma surrounding "conversations about sex".

A sneak peek into the Land of the Kama Sutra,

How is sexual abuse okay, but condoms ad's banned ?

How are rape jokes normalised, but contraceptive health a scam ?

How is child marriage legal but sex-education a crime ?

CONTEXT ||

1.429 B most populated country in the world

2.4 M third largest population of HIV infected

11.8 M teenage pregnancies

72% of Indians have unprotected sex

100% Taboo surrounding conversations about sex

NARRATIVE ||

An abstract take on using multi-sensory modalities as provocations to question and defamiliarize the taboo surrounding conversation about sex in India and parallel communities.

LINGO ||

Demystify: to make (a difficult subject) clearer and easier to understand

Normalise: to allow or encourage (something considered extreme or taboo) to become viewed as normal

Defamiliarize: the artistic technique of presenting to audiences common things in an unfamiliar or strange way so they could gain new perspectives and see the world differently

Taboo: prohibited or restricted by social custom

WHY ARE CONVERSATIONS SURROUNDING SEX STILL CONSIDERED A TABOO IN THE LAND OF THE KAMA SUTRA ?