Contemporary visual culture is full of references, but few examine where those references come from and how they are placed in the current socio-cultural landscape. The act of shaping an image today is also the act of translating context and the subtle dynamics between representation and reinterpretation. Two Odd has built its practice with the same specificity shapes both the style and the argument of their work.

Founded by Akshita Garu, Two Odd operates as a hybrid studio and editorial platform, producing campaigns, visual identities, photographic projects, and research-driven features. Their work draws from ordinary South Asian objects like steel storage containers, aluminium lunchboxes, spice colours, household plastics — and repositions them in spaces usually governed by Western design templates; as a way of shifting who gets to define contemporary aesthetics in the first place.

Akshita's recent visual piece, 'If my LinkedIn could be an Instagram post', furthers how the studio uses material culture to make a point about representation. Akshita describes the project as an attempt to “creatively articulate everything I am trying to achieve with my work.” Instead of staging a polished corporate self-portrait, she fills the frame with objects tied to domestic labour, regional kitchens, and everyday commerce: chilies threaded together, steel plates and containers, fruit chains. These objects appear without irony and without the sentimental tone often attached to 'tradition.' They are treated, instead, as active elements of a visual vocabulary than just passive ethnic markers.

This approach has been present across Two Odd’s earlier projects as well. Their editorial features consistently highlight cultural workers from overlooked regions; their design work draws from hyperlocal references — vernacular typography, market signage, textile patterns — without diluting them for broader appeal. In campaigns, the studio frequently centres the people who shape these materials, not just the aesthetics derived from them. That emphasis on lived context anchors the work and prevents it from sliding into surface-level 'representation.'

What sets Two Odd treats visual culture as a record of how people move through space — what they cook with, how they make meaning, and what they inherit. By placing these objects in controlled, contemporary compositions, the studio disrupts the expectation that South Asian design must either mimic Western minimalism or lean on decorative nostalgia. Two Odd works in the space between those defaults, building images that recognise the complexity of everyday life.

Follow Two Odd here.

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