Future talks¶
General reflections¶
Future Talks have been an interesting space to have a conversation with design practitioners, mostly from Academia and understand what their perspective on design is. One of the most important topics discussed is the importance of first person perspective and embracing subjectivity into the design process. Oppression has also been an important subject matter in the Future Talks and is an interesting build on first person perspective since we can’t exclude our personal politics in whatever we design and as designers we need to be mindful of this types of influences and relations when working with others and especially communities.
Audrey Desjardins¶
Audrey Desjardins shared how she implemented first person perspective using autoethnography from a lens of academia. My main takeaway from this session is the importance of documenting and in many formats (such as DIY tutorials, travel diaries and time lapse videos). The other highlight for me is embracing subjectivity and getting co-conspirators in your process. Subjectivity always exist so it is best to embrace it rather than hiding it and pretending it doesn’t exist. Audrey shared her experience living in a van and how she adapted this journey as her autobiographical intervention.
More than the research topic, I was also interested in the conversation afterwards when she shared an article on how design research can sometimes act as psychotherapy. I have seen this happen in conversations with survivors of violence in relationships and in corporate settings and sometimes a design reserch interview can act as a safe space for victims to speak up. However researchers are not always trained to manage or handle these conversations so this is something important to keep in mind when engaging with humans and addressing taboo topics.
Another important point the conversation raised was made by Marielle about the priviledge of picking a theme such as travelling in a van as Academia and it got me thinking of how culture and in which part of the world you are designing influences the urgency of your subject matter and allows you to focus more on the future. When designing in Peru and Latin America urgency and the present is always at the forefront and the future and the planet is secondary. This is not something to be judged but something to be understood.
Article Audrey shared on Design Research as Psychotherapy
Laura Forlano¶
Building on the subject of first person perspective, we heard the work of Laura Forlano who is very interested in cyborgs and how cyborgs emerge in society. Her work also explores the intersections between disability and cybords and she had very good examples of working with the diabetes community. One thing that was a highlight for me was how she deep dived on Reddit communities and how communities can also occur in the digital space, especially when people need to come together around a medical condition or a disability and may have trouble finding peers in their geographical region.
A tool that I will try to incorporate in my work moving forward are vignettes. Trying to capture specific or unique moments that resonate with you personally that can then become design input. She mentioned that when a key moment occurs she takes notes, writes basic details to jog her memory and then writes up the vignette to make sense of the story. Some stylist examples, writing vignettes as diary entries, i.e. “it was 5:03 am when …”
Frederick Van Amstel¶
Frederick’s Future Talks was one of our first Master approximations to understanding diseño libre and how oppression and design interact. His work attempts to incorporate the indigenous perspective into design and looking at how colonialism impacts relationships starting with our human body. Another important point of his conversation is how we cannot exclude politics from design and just by working in an open source, open data manner we are making a political standpoint.
One of the talking points that was interesting from this Future Talks was how Frederick mentioned that in Europe he is perceived as an immigrant latino man even though he is Dutch Brazilian. This also spoke to me because priviledge is contextual to geography and how humans perceive you in regards to your accent, skin tone and racial features.
Some personal reflections that emerged as a result of this Future Talks:
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How can we collaborate with indigenous communities without extracting knowldge and falling into colonial ways of relating?
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How do our bodies relate to oppression? What exercises can we use with our bodies to acknowledge this?
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How can we discuss politics intersecting with design in different scenarios without creating a threatening environment?
Links from the conversation
Frederick’s Design and Oppression community, inspired by Paulo Freire theory
Julia Ballesteros and Milena Rosés¶
This Future Talks revolved around radical situatedness and reflecting how to choose an alternative paths to building our own career and connecting back with our knowledge on ourselves we have acquired from the first Trimester.
One interesting reflection Mariana brought to the table is that the word radical comes from the word “root” so looking at where things come from from an introspection point of view is important and also when dealing with materials and interventions.
Radical situatedness is a way to depart from traditional paths and to rethink and step back. Julia and Milena’s story was very inspiring looking at ways to go back to their home town, start conversations from scratch and explore materials with a local point of view. Their proposal is not a regular ceramics studio because it looks at where material comes from and co-designs with the local community and also the local geography.
Some questions this conversation sparked:
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What does radical situatedness look like when working with digital interventions?
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How can we leverage local knowledge when designing with communities?
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What is an alternative path I can take in my personal journey to connect with my own roots?