Mapping Sexuality by Nithya Subramanian

The Directory – Mapping Sexuality in India – is a compendium of the names of institutions, organisations, publications, audio-visual material, digital outlets, and events in the broad sphere of gender and sexuality studies in India.

The design attempts to capture the diversity of the directory in its use of line, colour, shape, and interaction. The main buttons on the homepage break open when hovered over, to echo the Centre for Studies in Gender and Sexuality logo and the idea of quite literally breaking open boxes.

Similarly, in the charts, no shape is quite rectangular or perfectly circular. Instead, they are all unique, and not one is exactly the same as the other. The shapes are generated differently each time the website loads. The animation on the homepage morphs shape and colour continuously, as a visual metaphor for the fluidity of gender and sexuality and how they interact with one another.

The map had to contain several organisations that do not have a precise location, merely the city they operate from. Such organisations are placed within a grid that covers the entire city. The Delhi organisations are a good example of this.

All the data can be dynamically updated in a Google Sheet in the back end.