Breakfast gets a creative twist

At Creative Mornings Bengaluru, a free monthly lecture series, people gather for some light repast with interesting conversations

Next Sunday, a diverse group of people will gather at KalaRasa art gallery in the morning to listen to graffiti artist Ullas Hydoor speak on "Inking Ideas", have a bite and lots of conversation. Hydoor says there are a lot of misconceptions about street art and he hopes to clear some of them while underlining the potential it has to change the way to look at things. For good measure, he'll even show you how you can make your own spray can. Last month, Arshia Bose, who has a PhD degree in environment and development issues from Cambridge, addressed a similar gathering about biodiversity conservation in coffee producing regions for her talk "Ficus to Filter".

These informal talks over breakfast are part of "Creative Mornings Bengaluru", a free lecture series held on a Saturday or Sunday every month since August 2013. The series was originally launched in New York in 2008 by designer Tina Roth Eisenberg, and was conferred the title of "TED for design wonks" by emerging technology publication Wired. Entrepreneur and designer Vikram Shenoy happened to attend a few when he was in New York and felt Bengaluru needed its own chapter. "I liked the fact that it was an informal gathering, where you listened to something you're interested in and met like-minded people. That format really appealed to me," says Shenoy, who leads the team for Deloitte Digital. When he returned to the city he got in touch with people at design and production firm Canvas Creations, who were as enthusiastic about launching the lecture series in the city. "We also believed in the concept of creating a platform, rather than joining one," says Karishma Rao, co-founder of Canvas Creations. Rao emphasises that the organising team itself is organic, and also relies on a lot of volunteers.

The talks, while aimed at the creative community, are not restricted to design, and they try to make it socially relevant as well, says Rao. Each month's theme is determined in advance by the headquarters in New York and the team decides on the speaker accordingly. So far, 16 talks have been held in the city, spanning a variety of subjects. A talk by Dave Crossland, a consultant for the Google Fonts project,  was on the design challenge of taking the Devanagari script into modern screens (the web), while local history and conservation enthusiast Aliyeh Rizvi spoke about the importance of engaging with the past. Rao says the latter was a personal favourite because Rizvi spoke about how she interprets heritage and why it is important to her. "She said without knowing where you're from, you're incomplete," says Rao.

Each talk is attended by between 40 and 90 people, many of whom are interested in design, and include college students, architects and software professionals across different age groups. Organisers say the audience also varies according to the theme and the speaker but they are almost always "passionate people" who want to learn something. "It's also important that the talks are free, organised by volunteers and driven by passion," says Shenoy.

Hydoor, scheduled to speak next Sunday, says he used to watch the talks for inspiration and was pleasantly surprised when the organisers contacted him to share his views. "I've always found these talks inspiring. There's so much negative news in the world but listening to these talks, you feel happy there are good things happening in the world," he says. Asked about his experience of attending the talks he laughs and confesses that it had so far been really difficult for him to wake up early on a Sunday morning and had ended up watching them online. Next Sunday, when he dons the speaker's hat, will be an exception.

To register for Hydoor's talk and stay updated about other talks, visit www.facebook.com/CreativeMorningsBLR