Nayanika Chatterjee

Nayanika's film, Under The Rug was a result of drawings based on observations that she made at home. The daily routine that was followed at home seemed like a never-ending loop that brought a sense of comfort and familiarity. This very routine managed to sustain class differences, patriarchy and oppression within the family. Certain incidents kept happening over and over again, and the inability of acknowledging this prompted her to add an element of humour in the film.

Nayanika’s idea began with exploring the concept of change within a family: how does one attempt to change something that has always been part of a regular routine? With her own experience of how the institution of a family attempts to keep the political and personal as two separate identities, she was able to evolve her concept for the film. She noticed that there was a constant standard of decency that was upheld in the house - in extremely subtle ways. These inherent rules made the routine a perpetual and long lasting loop.

I started with basic sketches of my initial ideas using a pencil brush. The idea was to find a mid-way between drawing on paper and drawing digitally. Because of lockdowns in India, printing shops were not easily accessible, so I decided to use brushes and textures that would resemble drawings on paper.

In my first year at the RCA, I explored the documentary form by using personal narratives and animation as a way of portraying stories.

A global lockdown and the onset of a pandemic was something that we never thought we’d have to confront some day. Some of us stayed back, some decided to stay with their families - to try and comprehend the situation better. And that is when 12 illustrators, from all across the world, decided to depict their experiences of isolation. We came together as international students from the Royal College of Art to put together our experiences in the form of a graphic novel. The themes cover a diverse range of topics - from politics to vivid imaginations, noticing the unnoticed, to dreams that cannot be comprehended. 

Sanitiser on Toast is a graphic novel anthology that brings together experiences from across the globe of isolation due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In India, when thousands of migrant labourers began the long journey home at the start of the lockdown, many lost lives due to hunger, road accidents and exhaustion. I noticed that in the comfort of my house, it was becoming incredibly easy to ignore such news that made me uncomfortable, and this was fast approaching the new normal. My contribution to the graphic novel is based on the massive migrant exodus, never seen before.

A showreel with hand drawn animation work done at the RCA along with motion graphics videos before joining master's at RCA.