A Sneak Peek At SMI Interpretations’25
The Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology (SMI) is hosting its annual winter showcase, titled “Interpretations ’25,” that aims to transform the ambit of contemporary art and design education through active engagement. It caters as a zestful platform where academics are intercepted by the erratic pulse of the real world. The event is running from December 18 to 20, 2025. The exhibition titled “Crafting Our Actions” is the biggest highlight of the entire occurrence, which denotes a month-long collaboration between their students and global artists.
The exhibition includes the spirit of the ‘Interim’ program, a special marker in SMI’s academic calendar where undergraduate students work alongside visiting artists and designers. This exercise aims to understand the “complexities of our world” through the tangible processes of crafting, critical thinking, and a relentless method of trial and error. The event is taking place at the MAHE Bengaluru campus in Govindapura.
“Interpretations” has regularly functioned as Srishti Manipal’s annual public-facing exhibition, where students showcase their works that are created by rolling beyond classrooms. This is also their formal initiation as a batch into the public domain. The 2025 edition emphasizes the process-driven aspect, rather than being a product-centric display.
Interpreting “Crafting Our Actions”
Among global art schools and design institutions, an emerging trend of delving more towards a more socially responsive practice. It basically refers to works that are oriented with ethics, the concept of sustainability, and critical thinking. Interpretations ’25 seems to move along the same trajectory. This exhibition is rooted in how ideas translate into interventions, narratives, and responses to the world students inhabit. It also manifests SMI’s educational philosophy. The institute emphasizes a “porous and permeable” learning environment. This means the displayed works often include productions of students living in different communities, traveling to diverse locales, and responding to actual societal changes.
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This approach is highly pragmatic and dwells less on classroom briefs. In a nutshell, the institute embraces a positive “chaos” to give birth to limitless creativity. This is a crucial ground where students are exposed to rejection and failure, and it is treated as an important step towards “crafting” a meaningful response to global challenges such as sustainability, identity, and technological ethics. The 2025 edition is a continuation of the ethos, which allows attendees to perceive the exhibition as a constellation.
A Campus Event with a Community Pulse
The SMI Interpretations ’25 is not an inward-looking academic exercise but a campus-wide cultural event. The institute’s broader learning mechanism emphasizes peer learning, open critique, and public engagement. Student-run blogs, alumni nexuses, and other sources describe this annual event as a space where conversations matter as much as objects. Visitors can expect to see sketches, prototypes, documentation, and dialogues with students complementing their finished works.
Snapshots of the Event
| Aspect | Details |
|---|---|
| Event Name | SMI Interpretations ’25: Crafting Our Actions |
| Primary Dates | December 18 to December 20, 2025 |
| Venue | SMI Campus, MAHE Bengaluru (Govindapura, Yelahanka) |
| Participants | Undergraduate students and visiting practitioners |
| Organizing Body | Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design & Technology |
| Core Philosophy | Transdisciplinary research and experimental pedagogy |
| Focus | Process, action, interdisciplinarity, and community engagement |
Key Highlights
- Annual flagship exhibition showcasing student work across disciplines
- Emphasis on process-led and action-oriented creative practices
- Strong alignment with contemporary debates in art, design, and social engagement
- Open, inclusive campus culture encouraging dialogue between students, faculty, and visitors
- Visual identity reflecting experimentation, plurality, and layered thinking
A Closer Look
The event is one among multiple-venue fests across Bengaluru, including exhibits such as “Practices of Attunement” at the Bangalore International Centre and “Prologue” at the Venkatappa Art Gallery. The exhibition has an “Open House” spirit, encouraging wider participation. It reflects the Institute’s commitment towards “multimodal representations.”
Looking at other student-led exhibitions, an increasing consensus about the articulation of “why they make, not just what they make” by the emerging practitioners is noticeable. This exhibition also frames students’ output as “actions.” Thus, it poses an implicit query to the responsibility, agency, and relevance of their work, meaning that students have to be more accountable and responsive towards their own output.
Takeaway
SMI Interpretation’25 is beyond a mere visual spectacle; it is a thoughtful reinvention of how students’ works are interpreted and engaged with. It offers a blurb for all design institutions regarding public engagement. The best part is that SMI treats this exhibition as a “living conversation” rather than a final “grading” aspect.
Collective events like this (such as in BIC, Venkatappa, and the Yelahanka campus) turn the city into a living art gallery, making art and designs accessible to all.
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The exhibition emphasizes that creativity is not neutral; it is influenced and moulded by choices, contexts, and consequences. The 2025 edition is not just a mere talent show; it reasserts the role of practical education complemented by meaningful cultural action. It drifts from the routine of listening to lectures and steps ahead towards demonstrative practices.
As the world is becoming more networked and interdependent, occurrences of events like this are a necessary step in making students more capable and resilient. It is through initiatives like these that a newcomer will gain hands-on experience in the “real” ways of working in their niche. It ultimately stands with the fact that “creativity is not just a skill but a resilient way of being.”
