Connected Communities & Digital Futures
Part of Unbox Labs: Caravan edition 2016
1. Caravans
Past, Present, Future
1. Why a Caravan
2. We take the Golden Road to Aberystwyth
3. An Epic Meeting of Two Worlds
4. Slow Convenings
5. Super Collaboration Highway
6. Fragments of (Dis)Connection
2. Rethinking Making
Myself, My practice, The city, Objects
1. 34 go mad in Ahmedabad
2. Chewing the Cud
3. Post LAB Reflection
4. Museums Without Walls
5. Camera Things
6. Immersions
7. Story of a Caravan Journey
3. Making Something
1. A Word of Advice to Myself as A Student
2. Journal Entry
3. Dumb Inside
4. Conductive Contract
5. Diyas Thinking Through Making
6. Unbox Redux (Gary Stewart)
7. Finding Chemistry: Clay, Metal, Leather
8. Excepts from a Diary of a Journey, 3PM Daily
4. Digital Futures / Future Digital
1. Digital India
2. Learning from Openness
3. The Jugaad of Code
4. An Ethical Guide to the Internet of Things
5. The Order of the Dark Temple
5. The Ending
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The UnBox platform offers a space for experiential learning that builds on emerging contexts and cases of multidisciplinary, creative collaborations that are rooted in people-centric approaches.
Incepted as an annual festival in India in 2011, and a fellowship programme since 2012, UnBox has prompted new thought and partnerships at the intersections of design, art, culture, social transformation and enterprise.
The UnBox LABS provide a form of ‘controlled experiments’ - in harnessing ideas within collaborative, people-centered settings. We believe this approach to be essential for driving sustainable and inclusive resolutions to the complexities that our collective futures will throw up.
The models of collaboration that the labs seek to fosters are new and experimental.
A brief history of Caravanserais
Angus Stewart
The English word Caravanserai, comes from a Turkish original, Kervansaray, which means “caravan-palace”. Strangely, the Turks call such a place a “khan”, not to be confused with the Mongol word “khan’ that means ‘king’.
A kervansaray would be a place like a big walled castle for merchants. In fact, archaeologists sometimes find it tricky to tell the two apart—as at Aqaba in Jordan, when it may be that the site shifted between kervansaray and Ottoman army fortress.
A kervansaray would have big stables and storerooms for the animals and goods, a bathhouse, kitchens, prayer hall, etc. But the centre would be a courtyard—for people to talk, gossip, and tell stories.
Rulers who wanted a good reputation—and the money that could be got from encouraging trade, which could be taxed—would build new kervansarays, or sponsor older ones. So a network of these buildings gradually grew, following the main trading routes from Anatolia through Iran into Central Asia. These were secure stopovers, guarded and locked at night. A merchant inside would be safe from robbers and wolves. They were fortified motels.
It wouldn’t just be merchants either. There were people who were just interested in travel—like Ibn Battuta in the 14th century, or Evliya Çelebi in the 17th century, who left accounts of their travels. Or pilgrims—Christians heading to Jerusalem from Central Asia, or Muslims heading to Mecca, or, when it was safe, Buddhists heading between China, Tibet and India. Or missionaries—like the Franciscan friars sent out to China, Central Asia and India in the later 13th, early 14th centuries (John of Montecorvino was made Archbishop of Khanbalig (“King’s Town” = Peking) in the early 14th century). Or government agents—like the Chinese officials sent out to help run Persia in the C13/14, such as Bolad Chiensang, who told the great Persian minister and historian Rashid-al-Din about Chinese history and science, or the others who persuaded the Persian ruler in the 1280s to introduce paper money (the economy collapsed overnight). Or it might be scholars looking to study with experts across the region; or storytellers, artists, or slaves.