I am a member of the UAL DESIS Lab, as part of the international DESIS (Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability) network. Together with Cecilia Casas Romero, Alberto Franco Gomis, and José Manuel Chavez Muñoz (from Zaragoza), I am contributing to launching a new DESIS thematic cluster on Practice and Education in Design for Social Change. I believe this opportunity, parallel to my ARP, is a valuable opportunity to share my experience in delivering student project briefs involving vulnerable people, and gather various perspectives from other educators around the word, and receive advice to inform future developments of this important area of work.
Given the current world’s environmental, social and economic crises, it is increasingly recognised that designers can play an important role in working with vulnerable people and persons at risk of exclusion, contribute to improving their living conditions and foster social justice (Costanza-Chock, 2020). This is aligned with DESIS’s goals and this proposal for a new cluster is intended to give it an explicit space within the network. Being part of DESIS as an international network of Universities that undertake research, knowledge exchange and teaching in design for social innovation, we invited Lab members to share experiences and insights on education as a way to shape a fair transition to a better (i.e. more socially, environmentally, economically, and culturally sustainable) future. The aim of this thematic cluster is to share experiences with the purpose of framing social design practice as a set of approaches or mindsets which we can develop when designing and teaching social design, and which can complement the regular performance of the design discipline in its different facets (product design, graphic design, fashion, service design, etc). Similar to my ARP, this proposal for a DESIS cluster could focus on exploring what it means to work with students in challenging contexts that include vulnerable people (e.g. Prof. Lorraine Gamman’s work with Product Design students from UAL and inmates) and to reflect on the implications of this work for social design teaching and practice. We therefore invited DESIS Lab members to share experiences in this area and identify commonalities, differences, and potential strategic pathways for future work (e.g. workshops, talks, publications, collaborative projects, etc.). This proposal also aims to fulfil the so called ‘third mission’ (Compagnucci & Spigarelli, 2020) of Universities and engage in knowledge exchange with communities and other organisations contributing to positive social impact. This proposal for a new cluster also builds on the success of the ESDA Social Design Days from the past two years, creating a platform for discussing, collaborating, experimenting, developing, delivering, and amplifying this area of work. I look forward to participating in the III ESDA DESIS Days in March 2024 which will be the “kick off” of this new DESIS Cluster.
We gathered interested DESIS Lab members in an online meeting on 14th November to explore interest in participation and generate ideas. This was the first step to inform the plans for the III ESDA DESIS Days, in which we will then exchange experiences in teaching and practising social design, with the involvement of students, staff and wider communities.
Below you can look up the introductory presentation we delivered, as well as the slides by other DESIS Lab members (DESIS Lab @ Nova SBE in Portugal, KNUST DESIS Lab in Ghana, and DESIS CENTRO in Mexico) who shared their projects involving vulnerable people, the challenges and opportunities experienced and their ideal next steps for the cluster. The meeting included also verbal presentations by the DESIS Lab at Design School Kolding in Denmark, Northumbria University DESIS Lab in the UK, Designmatters ArtCentre in the USA, and the Art + Design elearning lab in Cyprus.
30 people expressed interest in the DESIS cluster and 21 people attended the online meeting, which brought to the fore several issues relevant to this forum on practice and education in design for social change, particularly relevant also to my ARP engaging students and vulnerable people:
- How we define “vulnerable people” in different cultural and educational contexts?
- How do we go about if the students are “vulnerable” themselves too?
- How do we encourage students to participate in this kind of experiences (e.g. what incentives can we offer?)
- What does it mean for students to participate in these initiatives?
- How can we avoid the risk of “pedagogic tourism” and “parachuting” students into vulnerable communities?
- How can we tackle this emotionally, how can we build trust and boost empathy?
- Which are the ethical, political, educational considerations to bear in mind when we bring students together with vulnerable people?
- How can we manage the power dynamics at play when involving multiple stakeholders in such projects?
- How to deliver authenticity when there is inherent imbalance in power in these collaborative projects?
- How to manage project partners’ expectations from such student projects?
- How can we sustain these student projects, beyond the timeline of a Unit?
- How can we support students / graduates to create spin off from such projects?
- How can we evaluate the social impacts of such projects, especially beyond the timeline of a Unit?
A video recording of the full meeting is also accessible on the DESIS Network YouTube Channel: A Call for all DESIS labs, hosted by ESDA DESIS Lab