Founded in 2012

3rd Space Lab is a women led, multi national collective of artists and designers from Bangalore, India and the San Francisco Bay Area. Our practice is centered around building understanding of our cultural differences. Our goal is to create a global commons that bridges cultural divides through creative means. Collective members include: Lalitha Shankar and Shamala Nandesha (India), Trena Noval and Shalini Agrawal (US). 3rd Space Lab stands against discrimination, racism, and violence against black and indigenous peoples and communities of color.

Our Mission

Our collective positions engagement and collaboration as practices for building trust, relationships and understanding. We build relationships with artists, craft communities, designers and other disciplinary experts to  knowledge-share and learn from each other’s lived experiences. Through community discussions, art and design projects, public events and exhibitions, we aim to share our mutual creative processes, values, and cultural practices to activate public imagination, engaging in more socially conscious actions that cross global borders.

Our Studio/Our Practice

Our collective has been built around global citizenry through values of mutual respect and grounded in social values and principles of 1) designing experiences through engagement that weave together our cultural identities; 2) creating new collaborative opportunities for participatory research, cultural exchanges, discovery and production; 3) promoting sustainable practices through design, production, materials and processes in our collective process; 4) sharing domestic experiences to deepen and share our cultural understanding; 5) promoting the practice of generosity and reciprocity by giving back to the communities where we are working. As a collective, we primarily engage in a virtual space that is international, adaptable and accessible, where we share ideas, develop projects and collaborate with others.