Arts Thread

Bhavani Balasubramanyam
mdes communication design

Glasgow School of Art

Graduates: 2024

Specialisms: Storytelling / Illustration / Creative Direction

My location: Glasgow, United Kingdom

bhavani-balasubramanyam ArtsThread Profile
Glasgow School of Art

Bhavani Balasubramanyam

bhavani-balasubramanyam ArtsThread Profile

First Name: Bhavani

Last Name: Balasubramanyam

University / College: Glasgow School of Art

Course / Program: mdes communication design

Graduates: 2024

Specialisms: Storytelling / Illustration / Creative Direction

My Location: Glasgow, United Kingdom

Website: Click To See Website

About

I am a visual storyteller and facilitator from India based in Glasgow. My clients include Lucy and Yak, The Singapore Art Museum and The Improv Company. My practice strives to spark joy in the viewer, melding authentic, evocative storytelling with humour and fantastical elements. I use narrative structures and world-building to bridge the gap between the everyday and the extraordinary.My work revolves around the themes of mental health, my south asian identity, and most importantly, my cat Kevin. I have an MDes (Communication Design) from the Glasgow School of Art and a B.A (Architecture) from the National University of Singapore.For my MDes thesis, I wrote and illustrated “Avial” - a comic book that explores specific South Asian stories while hitting the universal emotional cores that make human beings tick. In my BA, I focussed on the intersection between digital modelling, simulation and the built environment using BIM and motion-tracking techniques.

Ghost Trains

Specialisms:

Illustration

Ghost Trains speaks about the violence that ensued during the Partition of India in 1947, after 200 years of British colonial rule. There were communal riots all over the country – but in particular on the trains that carried refugees across the borders. These “Ghost Trains” would leave their place of origin packed with people squeezed into compartments or sitting on the roof, but would arrive at their destination full of corpses, silent and bloody. This historical event shaped generations to come and isn’t often talked about outside of our own South Asian education. I wanted to emphasise the sheer scale of the people who were killed during Partition on these trains and also play up the sooty, coal-like, harrowing nature of the whole experience. These prints are screen-printed with charcoal and overlaid with linocut stamps.