https://designradicalfutures.com Design Radical Futures Wed, 02 Aug 2023 20:09:47 +0000 https://designradicalfutures.com en https://designradicalfutures.com/Home Sat, 09 May 2020 20:00:05 +0000 Design Radical Futures https://designradicalfutures.com/Home Designing Radical Futures https://designradicalfutures.com/Work-1 Wed, 19 Aug 2020 20:15:28 +0000 Design Radical Futures https://designradicalfutures.com/Work-1 <img width="5906" height="8268" width_o="5906" height_o="8268" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/87dedfbaccf6c1d5243efe72f39478d0651f55651486465b26c28e154fc5edc6/Colored_Map.jpg" data-mid="245200827" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/87dedfbaccf6c1d5243efe72f39478d0651f55651486465b26c28e154fc5edc6/Colored_Map.jpg" /> River Valley Radical FuturesTravel to a future 100 years beyond the fall of capitalism, imagined by groups in the Connecticut River Valley in Massachusetts who work towards that future today. Download a map in English here, and in Spanish here (translation by Diego Acosta) About <img width="1100" height="1700" width_o="1100" height_o="1700" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/18f7445b09674325dcf6b21428d42c483d9c36cd45a4c3106fd076b114e50159/In-the-future-we-rely-on-each-other.jpg" data-mid="247746036" border="0" data-scale="42" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/18f7445b09674325dcf6b21428d42c483d9c36cd45a4c3106fd076b114e50159/In-the-future-we-rely-on-each-other.jpg" /> In the Future We Rely on Each Other A time travel story to the land of the River Valley Radical Futures map. Download here and order copies here from Flooded Pine Press, as part of their&nbsp;Finding Joy and Solidarity series. <img width="2400" height="1600" width_o="2400" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ecde27a6a1320a4a69a7d68bcb4fc0eeac36e5173b841945899ba36d4a910267/2-presenting.jpg" data-mid="198370180" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ecde27a6a1320a4a69a7d68bcb4fc0eeac36e5173b841945899ba36d4a910267/2-presenting.jpg" /> Making Radical FuturesA Humanities Lab at Smith College that explores collaborative ways of imagining futures without capitalism <img width="2400" height="1600" width_o="2400" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/20ad7c2c7c2e9a068753b4762b02e3ba10c4954bdefdd9ea6c1109bffeb0ba3f/01-algorithmstand.jpg" data-mid="198371595" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/20ad7c2c7c2e9a068753b4762b02e3ba10c4954bdefdd9ea6c1109bffeb0ba3f/01-algorithmstand.jpg" /> Lemonade 50¢Imagining economies without markets through speculative lemonade stands <img width="1081" height="1081" width_o="1081" height_o="1081" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1731e8957eff8bb1f2e1aa1b734b0ea1914db9ccd696ecb2bf0fce44d9a0a7fe/rosca-whiteshadow2.png" data-mid="120450042" border="0" data-scale="53" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/1731e8957eff8bb1f2e1aa1b734b0ea1914db9ccd696ecb2bf0fce44d9a0a7fe/rosca-whiteshadow2.png" /> Radical InfrastructuresAn Instagram study on alternative social structures, or groups remaking the fabric of society to question the status quo <img width="1502" height="1000" width_o="1502" height_o="1000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e23ea030fefec0b57f58f445e9fcc5c35e5bea4617d5eedc6d56c51822035ee5/liangwauson_bacerdosully.jpg" data-mid="80337813" border="0" data-scale="100" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e23ea030fefec0b57f58f445e9fcc5c35e5bea4617d5eedc6d56c51822035ee5/liangwauson_bacerdosully.jpg" />Radical Design Courses and workshops exploring speculative design as a practice to imagine what civic life might look like if we prioritized different values <img width="2000" height="1057" width_o="2000" height_o="1057" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/27a30d587ae6f0db5d5ff119dccc526e7b94416ba32b1fbdb82b299c04966810/badges_top.jpg" data-mid="80337791" border="0" data-scale="100" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/27a30d587ae6f0db5d5ff119dccc526e7b94416ba32b1fbdb82b299c04966810/badges_top.jpg" />Futures of Public Safety Working with activists and residents of St. Louis and Ferguson, MO to imagine futures where communities are kept safe without policing Does design inherently produce static, blueprinted ways-of-being? Is it possible to design within systems that are relational, cooperative, and dynamic? Designing for Self-DeterminationThemes about what design practices enable and disable, from a virtual workshop at the Participatory Design Conference https://designradicalfutures.com/Making-Radical-Futures-Lab Wed, 02 Aug 2023 20:09:47 +0000 Design Radical Futures https://designradicalfutures.com/Making-Radical-Futures-Lab May 2023 - June 2023Text by Millie Howard &amp; Alix Gerber Making Radical Futures Lab A Humanities Lab at Smith College that explores collaborative ways of imagining futures without capitalism. Summer ‘23 Lab organized by Alix Gerber / Research assistants: Millie Howard, Mirriam Nzunda, Phoebe Kolbert / Members: Amy Putnam, Emily Norton, Javier Puente, Kathy Guo, Megan Lyster Making Radical Futures is a Humanities lab at Smith College that uses practices from participatory and speculative design to explore collaborative ways of imagining futures without capitalism. We believe that design and making provide tools to strengthen our imaginations and break free from the intellectual confines constructed by capitalist hegemony. We co-create immersive experiences and games that imagine different social systems for producing and distributing what we need, through the lens of closer interpersonal ecosystem interactions. In Summer 2023, the lab kicked off with a 5-week session, where ten lab members (faculty, staff, and students from across disciplines) came together to plan and facilitate a series of three workshops. Workshops centered on 1) rooting ourselves in an understanding of how capitalism manifests in our lives, 2) making objects from futures without capitalism, and 3) tuning into our senses to allow more-than-human collaborators to guide us into futures beyond capitalism. Throughout, we grappled with the creative paralysis that capitalist hegemony sustains. We used design practices such as: making things tangible to show our visions to each other, working iteratively with a focus on process over any particular outcome, and building knowledge collaboratively in a way that recognizes each participant’s partial understanding. Activities like word mash-ups, role playing games, and worldbuilding mindmaps built lab members’ confidence in coping with the unknown and generatively envisioning possible futures together. Workshop 1: What is capitalism? Facilitated by Millie Howard, Megan Lyster, and Javier Puente <img width="2400" height="1600" width_o="2400" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/64780dcafb6cf26270a12b31bcf7200429f4237bd904c074a80b1f67eeb08941/1-toys.jpg" data-mid="186832276" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/64780dcafb6cf26270a12b31bcf7200429f4237bd904c074a80b1f67eeb08941/1-toys.jpg" /> The first workshop focused on establishing a common vocabulary and grappling with how capitalism is entangled with our everyday routines. First, we aligned on vocabulary through a game, where members matched words to children’s toys such as dice and juggling balls. For example, one participant said ‘Communism’ was like a juggling ball because the ball can represent a larger vision which requires significant collaboration and unity amongst pieces of the system. Next, we read and discussed an excerpt from Disassembly Required by Geoff Mann, and finally, we filled out exploratory worksheets aiming to understand the underlying capitalist mechanisms and pressures that influence the way we live out our daily routines. For example, we discussed the way that drinking coffee –a stimulant– ultimately serves to increase productive capacity and make money for corporations without increasing employee pay. <img width="2400" height="1600" width_o="2400" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1268e2ded90b8660d7b9f8d132cef3f640a78a89cc340013147016aa5804ac2d/1-worksheets.jpg" data-mid="186832673" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/1268e2ded90b8660d7b9f8d132cef3f640a78a89cc340013147016aa5804ac2d/1-worksheets.jpg" /> Questions we left with: We’re all coming from very different knowledge backgrounds about what capitalism is. How do we share what we know and build a collective understanding?How do we recognize the impact of capitalism on everything while also recognizing that there are other factors at play- how do we understand the edges of capitalism?How do we understand the ‘structural mechanisms’ of capitalism, not just the ideology around it? How do we imagine differently at that level? Workshop 2: Making for reciprocity Facilitated by Phoebe Kolbert, Emily Norton, and Kathy Guo <img width="900" height="1600" width_o="900" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/751205fc839f62c07f11fcd44eae1c948eac26e8480f3beaed5a346d6cbbf13c/2-hearing.jpg" data-mid="186835399" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/900/i/751205fc839f62c07f11fcd44eae1c948eac26e8480f3beaed5a346d6cbbf13c/2-hearing.jpg" /> <img width="2400" height="1600" width_o="2400" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ecde27a6a1320a4a69a7d68bcb4fc0eeac36e5173b841945899ba36d4a910267/2-presenting.jpg" data-mid="186835556" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ecde27a6a1320a4a69a7d68bcb4fc0eeac36e5173b841945899ba36d4a910267/2-presenting.jpg" /> <img width="1046" height="648" width_o="1046" height_o="648" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/51d7b3c9a7841cc6d5a258e396bb7edd604aeb9d005edeea13702d033c0293b5/cooplaymunity-edited-cropped.gif" data-mid="204131925" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/51d7b3c9a7841cc6d5a258e396bb7edd604aeb9d005edeea13702d033c0293b5/cooplaymunity-edited-cropped.gif" /> <img width="716" height="932" width_o="716" height_o="932" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d64894c490df4b7fc6615a5aed4bfe1934cc65c1965b25930314adf04a372f4d/wordmashups.jpg" data-mid="198365270" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/716/i/d64894c490df4b7fc6615a5aed4bfe1934cc65c1965b25930314adf04a372f4d/wordmashups.jpg" /> Our second workshop gave us an opportunity to imagine a world that prioritized reciprocity, as defined by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Kimmerer speaks about “the covenant of reciprocity, that for the Earth to stay in balance, for the gifts to continue to flow, we must give back in equal measure for what we take” (Kimmerer, Returning the Gift, 2013). Using words related to reciprocity, we created mash-ups that would frame our own visions of reciprocal worlds. For example, interconnectedness, cyclical, and curiosity became “intercycliuriosity: the all-encompassing perspective of continuous question-asking, particularly examining connections with others, human and non-human.” In groups, we used these words as prompts to make an object or infrastructure that would help us practice a more reciprocal way of being, for example a way of being ‘intercycliurous’.In the end, teams created three objects/performances: Cooplaymunity: a community of persons who make decisions together by being playful and approaching problems with lightness and generosity. They use play to do the necessary work of the group. This team created a jump rope mop and a rolling mop, tools for people who live together to clean their home playfully and collaboratively.Relatureful: embracing play and emergence with the understanding that if harm, discordance, or mistakes happen that nurturing and repair will bring us back into relation. This team created a community-building game in which members collaborate to pass small objects around in a circle without using their hands, therapeutically wailing together whenever an object is dropped and practicing giving and accepting apologies in order to repair relational harms.Intercycliuriosity: the all-encompassing perspective of continuous question-asking, particularly examining connections with others, human and non-human. This team created a pair of “consequence goggles” which would allow designers, architects, and engineers to see the impacts of their proposed creations on the environment and ecosystems of the future.Questions we left with:How can mashing up words and concepts enable inspiring and focused frames for envisioning?What role does language play in facilitating or resisting change to our mindsets and ideas?How can play make space to generate divergent ideas? Workshop 3: Learning from Non-human Ecosystem Relationships Facilitated by Mirriam Nzunda and Amy Putnam <img width="900" height="1600" width_o="900" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/250e432c92caa1d2a03e54fc901115ee06553e52139ab30ed64d906f599a81c3/3-web2.jpg" data-mid="198366491" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/900/i/250e432c92caa1d2a03e54fc901115ee06553e52139ab30ed64d906f599a81c3/3-web2.jpg" /> <img width="2400" height="1350" width_o="2400" height_o="1350" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6022b42ced20f90e2e008b32ec6aa9aef87c4e56d597a26b198b7c30a789b474/3-web.jpg" data-mid="198366490" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/6022b42ced20f90e2e008b32ec6aa9aef87c4e56d597a26b198b7c30a789b474/3-web.jpg" /> The third workshop we held let us allow more-than-humans to guide us into futures beyond capitalism through connection with our five senses. We learned from the symbiotic relationship between Matsutake and Red Pine in Anna Tsing’s book The Mushroom at the End of the World to understand what it means to be connected in the wake of disturbance and violence. We created a ‘wood wide web’ of yarn around trees to represent and be able to visualize mycorrhizal relationships between plant and fungi, and noticed what it felt like to re-wind our skeins and trace back our paths, untangling the web. <img width="2400" height="1350" width_o="2400" height_o="1350" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/cc9b33b2c4cc8e481a2ccdc49c2ad41ce57de5590f741d5381e9ad42dec00c0c/3-sensing.jpg" data-mid="198366616" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/cc9b33b2c4cc8e481a2ccdc49c2ad41ce57de5590f741d5381e9ad42dec00c0c/3-sensing.jpg" /> <img width="1158" height="1600" width_o="1158" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/db64fe061fdcf2c4a3aa2898d2314f819cf1aea0baff91f887e18a7f402f7abe/3-sensing2.jpg" data-mid="198366617" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/db64fe061fdcf2c4a3aa2898d2314f819cf1aea0baff91f887e18a7f402f7abe/3-sensing2.jpg" /> We isolated our senses, being with the surrounding ecosystem in silence and paying attention to what new sensations and occurrences we noticed when each of our senses were restricted. <img width="1920" height="1080" width_o="1920" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/67fac08a8cd86c79f765c44f9ab7fc2fc85f9ba82fca7e4da8cac5ae6f394afe/circledance.jpg" data-mid="204132209" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/67fac08a8cd86c79f765c44f9ab7fc2fc85f9ba82fca7e4da8cac5ae6f394afe/circledance.jpg" /> To end, we learned dances from plants to celebrate the human-ecosystem collaborations that are possible to cultivate as we move towards a world without capitalism. Questions we left with: What is the role of human disturbance in natural ecosystems? When is it necessary and when is it harmful – or both?Can we learn to understand and acknowledge conflicting needs in ecosystems and communities?How do we develop deeper, reciprocal relationships with more-than-human communities?How do we communicate with non-humans like plants and insects? What language do they speak? https://designradicalfutures.com/Lemonade-50 Tue, 20 Jun 2023 19:56:22 +0000 Design Radical Futures https://designradicalfutures.com/Lemonade-50 January 2022 - March 2023 Text by Alix Gerber &amp; Eleni Andris Lemonade 50¢ Imagining economies without markets through speculative lemonade stands <img width="2400" height="1600" width_o="2400" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5d524a76e2f65e02c745c785386cb8ea9d60974d470deb4f9ad1f199ff8c0375/01-marketstand.jpg" data-mid="182724553" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5d524a76e2f65e02c745c785386cb8ea9d60974d470deb4f9ad1f199ff8c0375/01-marketstand.jpg" /> <img width="2400" height="1600" width_o="2400" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ba3be2189030bd0ef18168bf22ee2236e3ebe56541803a2afaab2e5a2a8c6de5/1-cups.jpg" data-mid="182724551" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ba3be2189030bd0ef18168bf22ee2236e3ebe56541803a2afaab2e5a2a8c6de5/1-cups.jpg" /> <img width="2400" height="1600" width_o="2400" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c02e267e4deb714a4d9d399d7c034899894fda24e260fcdecf89d34ad8202a61/01-democraticstand.jpg" data-mid="182724552" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c02e267e4deb714a4d9d399d7c034899894fda24e260fcdecf89d34ad8202a61/01-democraticstand.jpg" /> <img width="2400" height="1600" width_o="2400" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/260572ac184cfa45ae81d2d630ed8b9e86e4a1b3d059e545a3a9126c0c2ba3c8/2-summons.jpg" data-mid="182724557" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/260572ac184cfa45ae81d2d630ed8b9e86e4a1b3d059e545a3a9126c0c2ba3c8/2-summons.jpg" /> <img width="2400" height="1600" width_o="2400" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/2889fb21543cece44f356f10c9cbdcf8419142ae0bfb0b9d3fed2726de821ef6/2-heatmap.jpg" data-mid="182724555" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/2889fb21543cece44f356f10c9cbdcf8419142ae0bfb0b9d3fed2726de821ef6/2-heatmap.jpg" /> <img width="2400" height="1600" width_o="2400" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/20ad7c2c7c2e9a068753b4762b02e3ba10c4954bdefdd9ea6c1109bffeb0ba3f/01-algorithmstand.jpg" data-mid="182724550" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/20ad7c2c7c2e9a068753b4762b02e3ba10c4954bdefdd9ea6c1109bffeb0ba3f/01-algorithmstand.jpg" /> <img width="2400" height="1600" width_o="2400" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f3a13cf061dcec04f5972c00dc2cbdb24522f51e193648facdb73c1776c87b77/3-app.jpg" data-mid="182724558" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f3a13cf061dcec04f5972c00dc2cbdb24522f51e193648facdb73c1776c87b77/3-app.jpg" /> On the weekend of March 25, University of Massachusetts Amherst hosted a conference called “Building Worker Power through Solidarity, Cooperation &amp; Care”. The conference brought together worker co-operatives and union organizers to discuss shared histories and future visions. Alix and Eleni hosted a workshop called ‘Lemonade 50¢: Imagining economies without markets’:As workers take control of their own labor and resources, we have an opportunity to imagine the kinds of economies we want to build together. In the United States, lemonade stands are a symbol of a child’s first foray into capitalist markets– a way to teach pricing, profits and entrepreneurship. Building on this symbolism, the workshop used the lemonade stand as a setting for participants to dream freely about future economies without markets. First, participants experienced three interactive exhibits that distribute lemonade via capitalist markets, democratic planning, and algorithmic budgeting. After a discussion about this experience, participants worked in groups to create their own lemonade stands exploring different ways of distributing resources. Participants used mindmapping and drawing to envision and share the economic alternatives they dream of.The Lemonade 50¢ workshop asked participants to imagine a new economy by drawing a lemonade stand that would exist within it. <img width="2598" height="1600" width_o="2598" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c4b7fa79f80669eca3f8ce1c3ade90f40648b594470e8a0a85e88423519c133e/workshopmaterials.jpg" data-mid="198371327" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c4b7fa79f80669eca3f8ce1c3ade90f40648b594470e8a0a85e88423519c133e/workshopmaterials.jpg" /> It started with a card deck with prompts in three categories: governance models (how decisions are made), allocation mechanisms (how lemonade is allocated to certain people), and mindsets (motivating principles behind a certain allocation model). We’re grateful to Aaron Tanaka and Sarah Wang at the Center for Economic Democracy for lending their suggestions and ideas on this. While capitalism involves a variety of factors beyond a market-based allocation mechanism, we focused this workshop specifically on exploring how resources could be allocated beyond markets.Participants imagined a world that responded to their prompts by collectively answering questions such as: “Who would control the lemonade stand in this world?” ; “Who could get lemonade from a stand and who wouldn’t be able to?” ; “How would people find out about the lemonade stand in this world?”. Then, they drew a lemonade stand that would exist in this landscape. As groups shared their ideas, we talked about how a speculative exercise like this one could&nbsp; be used by activists, organizers, and working people outside of traditional design/academic spaces to support existing transformational work.Lemonade stands Before participants took on the task of creating a lemonade stand for themselves, they explored three stands that we created from economies that allocate lemonade through capitalist markets, democratic planning, and algorithmic budgeting. <img width="2400" height="1600" width_o="2400" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5d524a76e2f65e02c745c785386cb8ea9d60974d470deb4f9ad1f199ff8c0375/01-marketstand.jpg" data-mid="182724553" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5d524a76e2f65e02c745c785386cb8ea9d60974d470deb4f9ad1f199ff8c0375/01-marketstand.jpg" /> <img width="2400" height="1600" width_o="2400" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ba3be2189030bd0ef18168bf22ee2236e3ebe56541803a2afaab2e5a2a8c6de5/1-cups.jpg" data-mid="182724551" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ba3be2189030bd0ef18168bf22ee2236e3ebe56541803a2afaab2e5a2a8c6de5/1-cups.jpg" /> The capitalist market stand sells cups of lemonade in three ‘flavors’ (Artisanal, Traditional, and 4 Kidz) for 10¢ at the beginning of the sale, but by the end the price has been raised to 50¢. <img width="2400" height="1600" width_o="2400" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c02e267e4deb714a4d9d399d7c034899894fda24e260fcdecf89d34ad8202a61/01-democraticstand.jpg" data-mid="182724552" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c02e267e4deb714a4d9d399d7c034899894fda24e260fcdecf89d34ad8202a61/01-democraticstand.jpg" /> <img width="2400" height="1600" width_o="2400" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/260572ac184cfa45ae81d2d630ed8b9e86e4a1b3d059e545a3a9126c0c2ba3c8/2-summons.jpg" data-mid="182724557" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/260572ac184cfa45ae81d2d630ed8b9e86e4a1b3d059e545a3a9126c0c2ba3c8/2-summons.jpg" /> The democratic planning stand offers cups of lemonade freely to anyone who can make it to their current location. The stand appears to be run by the Connecticut River Valley Recreation Committee, who runs a Lemonade program, hosting stands in different towns each week. Selected towns appear to be those with the lowest water quality in the area. A summons letter shows that residents are randomly selected to serve on this committee to equitably distribute lemonade and other recreational resources. <img width="2400" height="1600" width_o="2400" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/20ad7c2c7c2e9a068753b4762b02e3ba10c4954bdefdd9ea6c1109bffeb0ba3f/01-algorithmstand.jpg" data-mid="182724550" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/20ad7c2c7c2e9a068753b4762b02e3ba10c4954bdefdd9ea6c1109bffeb0ba3f/01-algorithmstand.jpg" /> <img width="2400" height="1600" width_o="2400" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f3a13cf061dcec04f5972c00dc2cbdb24522f51e193648facdb73c1776c87b77/3-app.jpg" data-mid="182724558" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f3a13cf061dcec04f5972c00dc2cbdb24522f51e193648facdb73c1776c87b77/3-app.jpg" /> The algorithmic budgeting stand dispenses lemonade from a kiosk that requires a tap from a phone showing a budget. The budget lists points allocated between categories like air travel, clothing, movie theater, bike shop. What if every person had the same number of points to allocate between categories that were most important to them? What if social media algorithms suggest a point budget that it thinks you might like? https://designradicalfutures.com/Futures-of-Public-Safety Wed, 26 Aug 2020 22:42:14 +0000 Design Radical Futures https://designradicalfutures.com/Futures-of-Public-Safety January 2017 - April 2018 Futures of Public Safety Talking and making with activists and residents of St. Louis and Ferguson, Missouri to imagine what futures without policing might look like. <img width="1500" height="1000" width_o="1500" height_o="1000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6b8922b00f562d68057b0c7230ce4b68b265c3fc2b00a539c9c47a2a6c470c53/ps_glove_fullsize.jpg" data-mid="81526436" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/6b8922b00f562d68057b0c7230ce4b68b265c3fc2b00a539c9c47a2a6c470c53/ps_glove_fullsize.jpg" /> <img width="1500" height="1125" width_o="1500" height_o="1125" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/06025ee09ca811b59ee85520916c81fa09170e4294ff129f19ca3a58b927cf3c/ps_screen.jpg" data-mid="81526442" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/06025ee09ca811b59ee85520916c81fa09170e4294ff129f19ca3a58b927cf3c/ps_screen.jpg" /> <img width="1500" height="1125" width_o="1500" height_o="1125" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/bd0e10d32140fd4bce6ad978f9d76f9872795097265a83c25c368524d30249c9/ps_nameplate.jpg" data-mid="81526437" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/bd0e10d32140fd4bce6ad978f9d76f9872795097265a83c25c368524d30249c9/ps_nameplate.jpg" /> <img width="1500" height="1000" width_o="1500" height_o="1000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3f68e6300d158dbdf5ad37563e289bd5dc4359b656ab4a0c2e8f5de0850b601c/gc_bulletbracelet.jpg" data-mid="81526741" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3f68e6300d158dbdf5ad37563e289bd5dc4359b656ab4a0c2e8f5de0850b601c/gc_bulletbracelet.jpg" /> <img width="2000" height="1057" width_o="2000" height_o="1057" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/27a30d587ae6f0db5d5ff119dccc526e7b94416ba32b1fbdb82b299c04966810/badges_top.jpg" data-mid="81522159" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/27a30d587ae6f0db5d5ff119dccc526e7b94416ba32b1fbdb82b299c04966810/badges_top.jpg" /> <img width="1500" height="1125" width_o="1500" height_o="1125" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/fe9dad716181612a1fc2bf203a006302ab640f0e3c2dedee74501b37fed2f980/hm_wheatfromthetare.jpg" data-mid="81522919" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/fe9dad716181612a1fc2bf203a006302ab640f0e3c2dedee74501b37fed2f980/hm_wheatfromthetare.jpg" /> <img width="1500" height="1000" width_o="1500" height_o="1000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/cf7716fb4ae4859a56ce83910b00c31e32031dc6d6e076d17a374e2601893850/hm_prayerstone.jpg" data-mid="81523393" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/cf7716fb4ae4859a56ce83910b00c31e32031dc6d6e076d17a374e2601893850/hm_prayerstone.jpg" /> In 2014, residents of Ferguson, Missouri rose up demanding justice and accountability from the city and the police officer who killed 18-year old Michael Brown. Supporters and media flooded in, and Ferguson became the site of an uprising that spread across the nation and the world. In 2015, the U.S. Department of Justice published the results of an investigation into the Ferguson municipal court and police department, exposing a range of racist practices that target and extort money from Black residents. In 2016, the city of Ferguson reluctantly entered into a consent decree with the Department of Justice, agreeing to implement a series of reforms to the policing and court systems. At the demand of protesters, this agreement included ongoing consultation with the public through an open group called the Neighborhood Policing Steering Committee (NPSC). Futures of Public Safety worked to create a space for thinking outside of the process of police reform in Ferguson. In official spaces like the NPSC and Department of Justice listening sessions, residents were encouraged to imagine incremental reforms that could be written into Ferguson Police Department policies. This made any form of safety achieved without police action feel irrelevant and impossible. In contrast, Futures of Public Safety worked to create space for residents to imagine futures without policing to sidestep assumptions that safety relies on police. <img width="1000" height="750" width_o="1000" height_o="750" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/84589f33bf3c33567b4ce635fdd268d52e04ca5416feaf6784d022d7122d82bf/1_setup.jpg" data-mid="80977615" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/84589f33bf3c33567b4ce635fdd268d52e04ca5416feaf6784d022d7122d82bf/1_setup.jpg" /> The Futures of Public Safety project looked like tables at block parties, creative activities at committee meetings, and exhibit/workshops in Ferguson and St. Louis. It was facilitated by Alix Gerber, alongside members of the NPSC, staff at Ferguson’s Center for Social Empowerment, and occasionally Washington University students. Early on, residents engaged in conversations about how an ideal society could respond to certain situations: driving over the speed limit, witnessing domestic violence, having a car stolen, etc. Through multiple iterations, Alix and a group of collaborators at Washington University created visuals and artifacts that built on these conversations, and then used the artifacts to spark more discussion. In the end, three futures were developed, stretching from government-led to community-led. Each future was created as a scene of the place where police officers would have been. Instead, we see a family in their home, a social worker in an office, and a prayer team in a church. Each scene explores a dream of Ferguson residents along with its potential negative implications. The scenes and props within them do not attempt to predict or propose solutions, but rather serve as a tool for community conversations about what we want from public safety. For residents who were working on Police Department policy with the NPSC (Neighborhood Policing Steering Committee), these conversations provided a space to discuss, for example, that safety might rely on peoples’ connection with each other and awareness of neighbor’s mental health, more than it does on police presence. Or that many Ferguson residents already work to keep each other safe through getting to know their neighbors and calling each other with any concerns, rather than calling the police. They were then able to engage with Police Department policy with this in mind, possibly pushing more towards decreasing police presence to make room for these community-led practices, rather than increasing the ‘friendly’ police encounters that are often the goal of community policing. Community-led ︎&nbsp; ︎ Government-led <img width="1000" height="815" width_o="1000" height_o="815" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/da836bac11e10d007a4bf779af6c0c28e853afa57495c24c62f7d294bfd20f6a/gc_collage.jpg" data-mid="81521486" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/da836bac11e10d007a4bf779af6c0c28e853afa57495c24c62f7d294bfd20f6a/gc_collage.jpg" />Future of Grassroots Cooperation <img width="1000" height="815" width_o="1000" height_o="815" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1e13e94e7cb16c10b34078b80b476ddde98dde59ca155be8d0952993446e709a/hm_collage.jpg" data-mid="81521516" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/1e13e94e7cb16c10b34078b80b476ddde98dde59ca155be8d0952993446e709a/hm_collage.jpg" /> Future of Hearts and Minds <img width="1000" height="815" width_o="1000" height_o="815" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/45838b4e595c259824efa2667eceb8d410a17c7c69f6400b131cf6e7e978121d/ps_collage.jpg" data-mid="81521518" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/45838b4e595c259824efa2667eceb8d410a17c7c69f6400b131cf6e7e978121d/ps_collage.jpg" />Future of Public Service Future of Grassroots Cooperation The Future of Grassroots Cooperation is inspired by many peoples’ belief that community members should be responsible for their own safety. People spoke about police getting involved unnecessarily when a child breaks a window, or a dog gets loose, or someone parks in the wrong place. They talked about how police don’t help with domestic violence – what a victim really needs is friendship and support from a neighbor. In the end, community members just need to “watch out for each other”. One woman said she held the kids in her neighborhood to a strict list of rules: no sagging pants, no gambling. If a kid is acting up, neighbors ask them what’s going on. It’s ultimately about caring for each other: “If you’re hungry, you come to my house, whether you’re a kid or adult. I give them respect, they give me respect.” <img width="2000" height="1057" width_o="2000" height_o="1057" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/27a30d587ae6f0db5d5ff119dccc526e7b94416ba32b1fbdb82b299c04966810/badges_top.jpg" data-mid="81522159" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/27a30d587ae6f0db5d5ff119dccc526e7b94416ba32b1fbdb82b299c04966810/badges_top.jpg" /> <img width="900" height="900" width_o="900" height_o="900" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5d556c06b4afdce83e3ea4703a11b59f164a23d3bc0c3b8317cfd55aa935e7b1/gc_bulletbracelet_square.jpg" data-mid="81522216" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/900/i/5d556c06b4afdce83e3ea4703a11b59f164a23d3bc0c3b8317cfd55aa935e7b1/gc_bulletbracelet_square.jpg" /> At the same time, others were concerned that this would lead to more of the neighborhood violence and retribution that happens today. Without a larger structure to maintain a rational justice, it would come down to a quick emotional response. One man considered what this future would be like if a robber broke into his house: “I don’t think a thief deserves death, but in the heat of the moment, he might get shot if I’m having a bad day.” In the imagined Future of Grassroots Participation, neighbors work together to keep their block safe. The protector scout vest (above) displays badges earned for skills like mediation and listening, neighborhood networking, education, first aid and maintenance of public space, but also the use of firearms, to ensure that neighbors can protect themselves and others against violence. The Neighborhood protectors are given bullets as a token of respect and trust, and wear them to display their responsibility. Neighbors communicate through a system of DIY radios, since a world that prioritizes community control might have more localized systems of production. Responding to this imagined society, participants discussed the challenges that confront this vision, as well as how they would imagine it differently. We talked about how community members would need to be more familiar with each other and more willing to invest in each others’ mental health. People imagined this world as being lush and green, full of creativity and celebration of each individual personality. &nbsp; Developed with Sukari Stone, Maya Mashkovich and Kristen DeMondo, based on conversations with Ferguson residents. Future of Hearts and Minds In a survey of Ferguson community members, people often referenced religion as a way for the community to come together, as well as a way to build a common morality. One person said that “prayer teams” should be formed to pray for those who commit crimes and do harm to the community. Another said that we don’t just need external motivation or punishment, we also need to address the “heart matter” – someone’s internal moral compass. Christian religion was often specifically called out, for example, "I would say that we should all come together as one and believe that Jesus is Lord of lords and King of kings.” <img width="1500" height="1125" width_o="1500" height_o="1125" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/fe9dad716181612a1fc2bf203a006302ab640f0e3c2dedee74501b37fed2f980/hm_wheatfromthetare.jpg" data-mid="81522919" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/fe9dad716181612a1fc2bf203a006302ab640f0e3c2dedee74501b37fed2f980/hm_wheatfromthetare.jpg" /> <img width="1500" height="1000" width_o="1500" height_o="1000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/cf7716fb4ae4859a56ce83910b00c31e32031dc6d6e076d17a374e2601893850/hm_prayerstone.jpg" data-mid="81523393" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/cf7716fb4ae4859a56ce83910b00c31e32031dc6d6e076d17a374e2601893850/hm_prayerstone.jpg" /> In the Future of Hearts &amp; Minds, local religious leaders ensure safety by developing the morality of community members. The prayer team stole (above) depicts intertwined wheat and tare, relating to Jesus’s Parable of the Tares. This story teaches that it is not necessary to separate wheat (good people) from the weeds (bad people) as they grow, because come harvest time, their difference will become apparent and the weeds will be burned while the wheat will be gathered in the barn of Heaven. This belief in a definite goodness and the reward of heaven might be fundamental in a society where we keep neighborhoods safe with Christian morality. There is also an audio track of a prayer, created for this project by Barbara Kizzie (founder/host of God in the Midst radio). This prayer was imagined by Barbara to be recited with people who cause harm in the community: “Dear Lord Jesus, I believe you died for me. Forgive me of all my sin. Come into my heart, come into my life, be my lord and be my savior. Show me your ways and help me to follow them. And now I know I’m forgiven and heaven is my home. In Jesus name, amen.” Your browser does not support the audio tag. Lastly, this scene includes prayer stones that serve both as invitations to prayer that community members may give to neighbors who cause harm, as well as cues to be given to the prayer team about who to pray for.&nbsp; Developed with Molly Brodsky and Christine Stavridis, prayer audio by Barbara Kizzie with Katherine Coleman. Future of Public Service The Future of Public Service comes from some residents’ beliefs that people who commit crimes are “coming from somewhere. It has its source, something that happened in childhood.” “Instead of asking, ‘What is wrong with you?’ [we should] ask ‘What happened to you?’ [and] help break the cycle.” Ferguson residents felt it was important to offer mentorship, jobs and employment, and suggested that people need to be taught and motivated to participate civically. In this imagined scene, a client sits in her case manager’s office. The case manager reviews her Risk Profile, noting her risk for anti-social behavior and drug abuse. An icon indicates that this risk has been calculated due to the clients’ few living relatives, adverse childhood experiences, diagnosed trauma and drug use. This references predictive policing tools like the Chicago Police Department’s ‘Strategic Subject List’ which, until very recently, made assessments about who to target based on similar criteria. If we replace policing with an emphasis on prevention, perhaps our current preventative strategies might find their way into the picture. <img width="1500" height="1125" width_o="1500" height_o="1125" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/06025ee09ca811b59ee85520916c81fa09170e4294ff129f19ca3a58b927cf3c/ps_screen.jpg" data-mid="81526442" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/06025ee09ca811b59ee85520916c81fa09170e4294ff129f19ca3a58b927cf3c/ps_screen.jpg" /> The screen also displays the client’s treatment plan and service history in a centralized dashboard of services attempting to keep each person healthy and harmless to the community around them. On the desk is a pile of Substance Buyback forms, similar to gun buyback campaigns, where people can turn in drugs for money that goes towards specific basic needs such as rent and healthy groceries. <img width="1500" height="1000" width_o="1500" height_o="1000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6b8922b00f562d68057b0c7230ce4b68b265c3fc2b00a539c9c47a2a6c470c53/ps_glove_fullsize.jpg" data-mid="81526436" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/6b8922b00f562d68057b0c7230ce4b68b265c3fc2b00a539c9c47a2a6c470c53/ps_glove_fullsize.jpg" /> <img width="1500" height="1125" width_o="1500" height_o="1125" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/bd0e10d32140fd4bce6ad978f9d76f9872795097265a83c25c368524d30249c9/ps_nameplate.jpg" data-mid="81526437" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/bd0e10d32140fd4bce6ad978f9d76f9872795097265a83c25c368524d30249c9/ps_nameplate.jpg" /> <img width="1500" height="1125" width_o="1500" height_o="1125" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/afa49a49f87fe8472d098d0b7b12ee9c4cc45c1c4e4f1710cf5e0743679b2974/ps_substancereturn.jpg" data-mid="80976990" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/afa49a49f87fe8472d098d0b7b12ee9c4cc45c1c4e4f1710cf5e0743679b2974/ps_substancereturn.jpg" /> This world replaces policing with preventative social services that strive to maintain the health of individuals in order to decrease conflict. However, it does so through a system of surveillance and control, reminiscent of current government services. As viewers approach this scene, questions arise about how recipients of services and education would react to them. Would they have a choice about whether to take advantage of these services, or would they be forced to accept the ‘help’? And how will we determine who needs the services in the first place? How are at-risk people identified, and what does it mean to be labeled this way? Developed with Liz Kramer. Conclusions While police departments imagine police officers as the sole solution to public safety, Ferguson residents imagine multiple ways to keep their neighborhoods safe in the future. This project set out to publicly recognize and broaden those different visions of public safety. One success was in the project’s approach of visual iteration. During our initial conversations about policing in Ferguson, people struggled to visualize their abstract ideas about a world without policing. More often, they shared stories about their own experiences. Later, using the designed artifacts and scenes, we were able to have more tangible conversations about the future. People pushed against the artifacts, saying "I didn't imagine it like that." They began to describe how each future looked in their own minds. This led to greater understanding and further broadening of our shared visions, and also allowed us to have specific conversations about how different futures might address challenges differently. For example, in the Future of Grassroots Cooperation, ‘How would we need to care for each others’ acceptance and mental health in order to prevent conflict?’ However, this visual iteration can only go so far in representing the visions of residents who are not involved in the initial production of the scenes. The unfamiliar speculative design approach made it difficult to engage residents throughout the process. Despite attempts at further collaboration, much of the design work was done by Alix and collaborators from Washington University, known widely for the racial and class barriers that divide it from the surrounding community. It was particularly difficult for us to relate to the Future of Hearts and Minds, even while this vision felt imperative to represent. Churches in the Ferguson area had played important roles in the 2014 uprising, and Christian ideals were often invoked in workshops and surveys conducted by the NPSC. We approached this future vision by referencing bible stories and church imagery, but it felt entangled with stereotypes that were difficult to navigate. One success was in getting in touch with Barbara Kizzie, host of God in the Midst radio, to record a prayer for the scene from her own perspective. In future projects, curating artifacts from experts related to shared ideals could be one way to broaden authorship. In the end, the project was appreciated by participating activists and NPSC members for the space it provided to imagine and think beyond the confines of the official Department of Justice process. __ Photo modeling by Maya Mashkovich, Anu Samarajiva and Sukari Stone. Workshop facilitation with John Chasnoff and Emily Davis at the Neighborhood Policing Steering Committee block party; Reybren Fitch and Nicki Reinhardt-Swierk at the Center for Social Empowerment; and Kaitlyn Schwalber at the Healthy Kids, Healthy Families Resource Fair. Writing &amp; Speaking “Participatory Speculation: Futures of Public Safety”, Participatory Design Conference, Hasselt, Belgium, August 2018 “Radical Futures: Designing for Fundamental Change”, Touchpoint, the Journal of Service Design, October 2018 “Speculative Design + Designing for Justice + Design Research with Alix Gerber” [podcast] Hosted by Dawan Stanford, Design Thinking 101, June 2019 “Designing Radical Futures” [presentation &amp; panel discussion] Dwelling in the Future: Imagining Tomorrow's City, Museum of the City of New York, New York, June 2019 “Futures of Public Safety”, Dwell in Other Futures, .ZACK, April 2018 “Participatory Speculation” [presentation &amp; exhibition] Louis D. Beaumont lecture, Sam Fox School of Design &amp; Visual Arts, Washington University, St. Louis, November 2017 “Futures of Public Safety” [workshop] Center for Social Empowerment, Ferguson, November 2017 “Listening &amp; Framing: Designing Civic Experiences” [presentation] Louis D. Beaumont lecture, Sam Fox School of Design &amp; Visual Arts, Washington University, St. Louis, March 2017 https://designradicalfutures.com/Radical-Infrastructures Tue, 28 Sep 2021 15:26:25 +0000 Design Radical Futures https://designradicalfutures.com/Radical-Infrastructures October 2020 - May 2021 Radical Infrastructures An Instagram study on alternative social structures, or groups remaking the fabric of society to question the status quo. <img width="1080" height="1080" width_o="1080" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/35de221e1fad1fe17bc69de9c05a168648933c8a3d75f87d87aa70bebb99100c/Post-3---01-100.jpg" data-mid="120119913" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/35de221e1fad1fe17bc69de9c05a168648933c8a3d75f87d87aa70bebb99100c/Post-3---01-100.jpg" /> <img width="1080" height="1080" width_o="1080" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/41841817348d5a263a688d6dff718b363571babf3973b57857796317c7ae1304/05_02-100.jpg" data-mid="120120165" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/41841817348d5a263a688d6dff718b363571babf3973b57857796317c7ae1304/05_02-100.jpg" /> <img width="1080" height="1080" width_o="1080" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/bc2df0c8af433b739c6c67a9c130878ff34673a6dbaec7c2bce817335be9ecf2/05_03-100.jpg" data-mid="120120166" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/bc2df0c8af433b739c6c67a9c130878ff34673a6dbaec7c2bce817335be9ecf2/05_03-100.jpg" /> <img width="1080" height="1080" width_o="1080" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c6c9ef34364db22a9c02e5aae303db0a9d91251a7c6509114621dfcdcdff1bca/05_04-100.jpg" data-mid="120120167" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c6c9ef34364db22a9c02e5aae303db0a9d91251a7c6509114621dfcdcdff1bca/05_04-100.jpg" /> After I spent some time using speculative design to imagine futures without policing and capitalism in the Radical Design classes and Futures of Public Safety project, I began to compare that speculative work with other ways of imagining the future. I saw activist groups who performed alternative futures together, building on shared political ideas and visions, like police abolition, solidarity economies and community accountability. These groups sometimes followed social movement traditions, and sometimes acted out of a basic need for safety and support when it wasn’t provided by the dominant system. I heard designers speaking of our ability to transform social systems, yet I also knew of the modernist, colonialist, industrialist mindsets design carries. I felt I needed to learn more about how people without design backgrounds go about enacting futures without policing and capitalism. I was particularly interested in how they approachthe same things designers claim to be expert in, like designing experiences that create meaning through form. To explore these questions, I created an instagram account @designradicalfutures and began posting case studies about social structures that have been ‘designed’ by activist groups. I followed a template for each case study (which changed slightly over time) to ask: where the structure came from, what touchpoints were designed for it, and&nbsp;how these structural elements enact alternative values. I also reached out to current groups enacting social alternatives to co-create some posts together. <img width="1080" height="1080" width_o="1080" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5d540aa807b084493e559657a942db2817a5314cdb3b45ccedab364404ceb8a2/04_01-100.jpg" data-mid="120115805" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5d540aa807b084493e559657a942db2817a5314cdb3b45ccedab364404ceb8a2/04_01-100.jpg" /> <img width="1080" height="1080" width_o="1080" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6f5021a0bdc8d97bf9ca07a4857dd91f3d1733c9e25926245cddb0f7f8bfc5e7/04_02-100.jpg" data-mid="120115811" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/6f5021a0bdc8d97bf9ca07a4857dd91f3d1733c9e25926245cddb0f7f8bfc5e7/04_02-100.jpg" /> <img width="1080" height="1080" width_o="1080" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/57c15933229c0954e85fdf6355ed168fe687f0585bf84a66716ea397613eda64/04_03-100.jpg" data-mid="120115816" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/57c15933229c0954e85fdf6355ed168fe687f0585bf84a66716ea397613eda64/04_03-100.jpg" /> <img width="1080" height="1080" width_o="1080" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/cbeb82b0c93e4c86492e7804e6f5747a72d9d0683141fbbb265dc4c24d12f6a5/04_04-100.jpg" data-mid="120115821" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/cbeb82b0c93e4c86492e7804e6f5747a72d9d0683141fbbb265dc4c24d12f6a5/04_04-100.jpg" /> <img width="1081" height="1081" width_o="1081" height_o="1081" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7d8d50c8bd52c6a074cf282a393619744ffd6540916e15cbe63355dfb825e276/06_Post-4---01.jpg" data-mid="120119934" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/7d8d50c8bd52c6a074cf282a393619744ffd6540916e15cbe63355dfb825e276/06_Post-4---01.jpg" /> <img width="1081" height="1081" width_o="1081" height_o="1081" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a2aad7103a5063388cd6876a1e378501260f9813098b6a50e526d2248cb4cc6c/06_Post-4---02.jpg" data-mid="120120169" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/a2aad7103a5063388cd6876a1e378501260f9813098b6a50e526d2248cb4cc6c/06_Post-4---02.jpg" /> <img width="1081" height="1081" width_o="1081" height_o="1081" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/020487bd4f86543b148ce78ea69b8fec30be329d4c2af9c69127c2d70c6e5d01/06_Post-4---03.jpg" data-mid="120120170" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/020487bd4f86543b148ce78ea69b8fec30be329d4c2af9c69127c2d70c6e5d01/06_Post-4---03.jpg" /> <img width="1081" height="1081" width_o="1081" height_o="1081" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/388b98964171f4cbc0d6f7376b9da7af0642baaead39931aa189439965166ca0/06_Post-4---04.jpg" data-mid="120120171" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/388b98964171f4cbc0d6f7376b9da7af0642baaead39931aa189439965166ca0/06_Post-4---04.jpg" /> <img width="1081" height="1081" width_o="1081" height_o="1081" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5222af2ecf02193746f7a20c63019905e5ad64d4d379ecbe67143173049b826c/07_Artboard-1-copy-9.jpg" data-mid="120119941" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5222af2ecf02193746f7a20c63019905e5ad64d4d379ecbe67143173049b826c/07_Artboard-1-copy-9.jpg" /> <img width="1081" height="1081" width_o="1081" height_o="1081" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/dcd301ff4239f5dcb033511276907c0572901cefa49cac19099233f02f622f4f/07_Post-4---02-copy-3.jpg" data-mid="120120172" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/dcd301ff4239f5dcb033511276907c0572901cefa49cac19099233f02f622f4f/07_Post-4---02-copy-3.jpg" /> <img width="1081" height="1081" width_o="1081" height_o="1081" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3dbedb630a8cfa4ccafef4b80e4147965f58b9c83f2793a383a186ba75ebb043/07_Post-4---03-copy-3.jpg" data-mid="120120173" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3dbedb630a8cfa4ccafef4b80e4147965f58b9c83f2793a383a186ba75ebb043/07_Post-4---03-copy-3.jpg" /> <img width="1081" height="1081" width_o="1081" height_o="1081" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a610ddec2bdf91e789052f9f7a4298d65dc15ff10f8c13825dc1965f993afc0a/07_Post-4---04-copy-3.jpg" data-mid="120120174" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/a610ddec2bdf91e789052f9f7a4298d65dc15ff10f8c13825dc1965f993afc0a/07_Post-4---04-copy-3.jpg" /> <img width="1081" height="1081" width_o="1081" height_o="1081" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f39b3e24fea46d85c5087c792ffef4068a45669c0a687b286692dba40473b2a4/09_Post-4---01-copy-2.jpg" data-mid="120119944" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f39b3e24fea46d85c5087c792ffef4068a45669c0a687b286692dba40473b2a4/09_Post-4---01-copy-2.jpg" /> <img width="1081" height="1081" width_o="1081" height_o="1081" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/02f71d77f2ca6a9534c332f08db24d6a6522b80fda060399fdc3e6b04e02f92a/09_Post-4---02-copy-5.jpg" data-mid="120120175" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/02f71d77f2ca6a9534c332f08db24d6a6522b80fda060399fdc3e6b04e02f92a/09_Post-4---02-copy-5.jpg" /> <img width="1081" height="1081" width_o="1081" height_o="1081" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b659de6a1fcea2330bd72b5cb7553a16a0da84d76364b1f9bf3332d2125ad2ba/09_Post-4---03-copy-5.jpg" data-mid="120120176" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b659de6a1fcea2330bd72b5cb7553a16a0da84d76364b1f9bf3332d2125ad2ba/09_Post-4---03-copy-5.jpg" /> <img width="1081" height="1081" width_o="1081" height_o="1081" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/435e8ff7920113e0e44cc00833834d096efa21199777aeacc565f3b266882b28/09_Post-4---04-copy-5.jpg" data-mid="120120177" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/435e8ff7920113e0e44cc00833834d096efa21199777aeacc565f3b266882b28/09_Post-4---04-copy-5.jpg" /> <img width="1081" height="1081" width_o="1081" height_o="1081" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6044c926fb3f32a8827a6cb4b6c571523b0faa53d983c53715f37ba1f2c01416/13_Post-4---01-copy-5.jpg" data-mid="120119957" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/6044c926fb3f32a8827a6cb4b6c571523b0faa53d983c53715f37ba1f2c01416/13_Post-4---01-copy-5.jpg" /> <img width="1081" height="1081" width_o="1081" height_o="1081" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b02b6b00ed37b2497b0bf76bdeb997d9a333512bb800eacb78af7fbe82394550/13_Post-4---02-copy-6.jpg" data-mid="120120178" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b02b6b00ed37b2497b0bf76bdeb997d9a333512bb800eacb78af7fbe82394550/13_Post-4---02-copy-6.jpg" /> <img width="1081" height="1081" width_o="1081" height_o="1081" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5a5a5184d88143448408c86d7eef986bf6b0a70869232f3edd98badbe027c259/13_Post-4---03-copy-6.jpg" data-mid="120120179" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5a5a5184d88143448408c86d7eef986bf6b0a70869232f3edd98badbe027c259/13_Post-4---03-copy-6.jpg" /> <img width="1081" height="1081" width_o="1081" height_o="1081" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7500cd0dd7c68784bf7f06a835c01a15fdcb416d4209ea10393160c48fc63e96/13_Post-4---04-copy-7.jpg" data-mid="120120180" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/7500cd0dd7c68784bf7f06a835c01a15fdcb416d4209ea10393160c48fc63e96/13_Post-4---04-copy-7.jpg" /> Written with Jorge Guzmán,&nbsp;Master’s student in Government and Public Affairs at the National Autonomous University of Mexico <img width="1081" height="1081" width_o="1081" height_o="1081" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/01b8038f07eb654da7d7e849359d61c6bcb95aab7f93123f4ac1cebe8d00f14f/14_Post-4---01-copy-2.jpg" data-mid="120119964" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/01b8038f07eb654da7d7e849359d61c6bcb95aab7f93123f4ac1cebe8d00f14f/14_Post-4---01-copy-2.jpg" /> <img width="1081" height="1081" width_o="1081" height_o="1081" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7906530dc159281420fb01f87ecbcdb95fcc850ea17e58d94623ecc7cb4ec535/14_Post-4---02-copy-5.jpg" data-mid="120120181" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/7906530dc159281420fb01f87ecbcdb95fcc850ea17e58d94623ecc7cb4ec535/14_Post-4---02-copy-5.jpg" /> <img width="1081" height="1081" width_o="1081" height_o="1081" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/93c274c52374efeb02751fdb4ea7130f708cc11411fb291289904d39a28d98f3/14_Post-4---03-copy-5.jpg" data-mid="120120182" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/93c274c52374efeb02751fdb4ea7130f708cc11411fb291289904d39a28d98f3/14_Post-4---03-copy-5.jpg" /> <img width="1081" height="1081" width_o="1081" height_o="1081" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0bbb39ef7d2c53fb06e3a2c64b6df02728978a63b5348660bc3d4f9b6bd4de4d/14_Post-4---04-copy-5.jpg" data-mid="120120183" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/0bbb39ef7d2c53fb06e3a2c64b6df02728978a63b5348660bc3d4f9b6bd4de4d/14_Post-4---04-copy-5.jpg" /> Written with&nbsp;member-workers at Hypha Worker Co-operative, rooted in Tkaronto (Toronto), Great Lakes Region Conclusions I looked at each of these case studies, (consensus hand signals, tech worker co-operatives, etc.) as designed experiences made up of a series of touchpoints: the spaces, roles, vocabulary, tools and technologies that make the experience possible. This translation to a service design perspective began to clarify the unique mindset a designer might bring, for better or worse. It’s difficult to imagine anyone mapping out the experience of a rotating savings and credit association, for example. These are traditions, passed down and iterated over time through group conversations and efforts. As a service designer, I consider a list of touchpoints as things to be ‘designed’ through a time-bound, defined process. Yet most of these touchpoints were created over generations, or bought quickly at a grocery store, or donated by a neighbor, or learned from another group of activists. As noted in our workshop at the Participatory Design Conference in 2020, it became clear that a design lens led me towards new invention and planning something out in a project-based way, rather than long term development with acceptable solutions. __ See further references at designradicalfutures.com/instagram https://designradicalfutures.com/Designing-for-Self-Determination-1 Tue, 28 Sep 2021 16:21:03 +0000 Design Radical Futures https://designradicalfutures.com/Designing-for-Self-Determination-1 January - August 2020 Designing for Self-Determination:Making Futures Without Policing Themes about what design enables and disables from a virtual workshop at the&nbsp;Participatory Design Conference (June 1-16, 2020). We examined the potential opportunities and dangers of using a design approach within grassroots movements that are building alternative social structures. Workshop participants investigated possibilities and limitations of design as a way of thinking by practicing the practice, in the context of designing for alternatives to policing. Participants built on community-based precedents to brainstorm and imagine tools and technologies that could replace a call to police in response to a threat. We used this as a collective experience to discuss and debate what design might or might not offer in this context. Designers claim to be able to shape future ways-of-being by designing artifacts that invite new socio-material interactions. Yet, design is only one way to create the future. Does design inherently produce static, blueprinted ways-of-being? Is it possible to design within systems that are relational, cooperative, and dynamic? How might designing objects help community organizers reckon with the tools and technologies of existing infrastructures and develop lateral solutions? <img width="3000" height="2007" width_o="3000" height_o="2007" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0025581c317955d96232868fd8f6555bf50daec3b65f6db8a1d80b209369b28b/mural-christine-sm.jpg" data-mid="120771319" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/0025581c317955d96232868fd8f6555bf50daec3b65f6db8a1d80b209369b28b/mural-christine-sm.jpg" /> After completing a design exercise online, groups gathered to discuss the results through a facilitated conversation: Who is involved in building alternative social structures like community-led street patrols, community accountability, mutual aid or worker cooperatives? (e.g. activists, community members, elected officials...)What was ‘designerly’ about our online design exercise process?How would the roles we listed in step 1 go about building alternative social structures in a way that’s different from the process we took on?What do we notice about the ideas that were created in our design exercise? What kinds of outputs did we create?What kinds of outputs do these other roles create?Looking at specific ideas generated through our design exercise, how do they work to achieve the alternative vision they were striving for?&nbsp;What designerly practices and ways of thinking are a useful addition to what others are already doing to create alternative social structures, and how are they useful?What designerly practices and ways of thinking are likely to interrupt, sideline or challenge what others are doing? How are they harmful? After the workshop, I identified a series of themes that groups discussed. These are shown below, along with images from the design exercise that groups were responding to. <img width="1500" height="977" width_o="1500" height_o="977" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3ee3183fdf9fffb92a12a6e2a90e079127dbe8d5fe9c739feb56b0da45ed1342/knowyouroptionsgame-sm.jpg" data-mid="120772787" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3ee3183fdf9fffb92a12a6e2a90e079127dbe8d5fe9c739feb56b0da45ed1342/knowyouroptionsgame-sm.jpg" /> Dominant Design is about making things tangible. Sketching and drawing, visualizing our ideas, and mapping/moving around visuals is part of what makes our processes designerly. Designers “think about form and application, or form and function– how will a tool be used, what will it look like?” This can be useful: visual skills can serve to “make physical spaces welcoming”, to “engage with tangible things and the built environment”, to allow “clear communication” and “storytelling”, to “make resources and knowledge available to others” and reach a broader audience. Making things tangible can also “help solidify an idea that may be general”. It can help to “show” abstract systems, and to “show prototypes to participants for feedback and editing”. “If we’re making things physical then multiple people can look at them and see the same thing.” / “The showing and materializing gets people to understand the idea a little bit better and see how it might be realized.” “I think when you add the design skills there you can make it more real and believable. So what was maybe just an abstract thought expressed (e.g. in a community meeting), what designers then do is put that into form, like tomorrow’s headline on a newspaper. That then makes it more believable, and that believability helps to bring something that was just an abstract concept into something much more concrete, and that concreteness then, moving forward, other ways of thinking and decision making.” It can also be harmful: “Designerly practices may prioritize or give too much weight to the visual, the clean, the ideal”. Funding streams may require aesthetics over other considerations that are more important in the goal of developing alternative social structures and striving for liberation. This mindset causes us to put “artefacts first”. It can lead to an “erasure of participants”, who become “passive contributors”. “Talking and spending time are also good methods” to build alternative social structures. Dominant Design does not allow for relationship-building without an eventual tangible output. This prioritization of artefacts leads us to use things to represent and enable relationships, interactions and behaviors, rather than simply relating, interacting and behaving. “A lot [of the tools in the design exercise] acted as ‘containers’ in which practices would be enacted” / “We’re making things, but things don’t make societal change. There’s something missing there.” <img width="2400" height="1864" width_o="2400" height_o="1864" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d88eb7cae18c91103b5c0b8d003caf03c210ddb0bcb35e20aefb2ea97c38e90d/homesafe.jpg" data-mid="120774013" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/d88eb7cae18c91103b5c0b8d003caf03c210ddb0bcb35e20aefb2ea97c38e90d/homesafe.jpg" /> Dominant Design focuses on technology. “When I think about the design tools [that participants submitted in the design exercise], there were two apps and a handful of services or programs. There wasn’t a single law. What do we fall back on? What are we familiar with as designers? Maybe that means we have a familiarity with apps, we’re comfortable drawing a picture of a service. That may not be the default mode of engagement for an elected official or for an organizer.” We know how to make “apps and tech-based platforms”, “new technological tools”. “I think design is a good additive skill. … People who have been doing community work want to learn design because they see it as a really great additive skill for various things. For me, it’s never flipped the other way around of which design is the foundation that could address the social structures. That makes it slightly difficult when design is the premise for social change.” / As an example of design as an additive skill: “I’ve been asked to design websites, and that’s really helpful because folks didn’t know how to do it. … My mother breeds fireflies in a town in Japan, because they’ve basically died out. She’s part of a group of many other groups, one part’s cleaning the river, one’s doing education, and she’s in charge of breeding these fireflies, which is a nightmare in the house. And they have a really bad website. So nobody comes to their educational things, and I’m like ‘Let me just do this for you.’ That kind of thing. So things that we feel could be a little bit menial, like I’m not the best web designer, but I’m better than my 75-year old mother.” “I do think that a lot of times these small [technical] interventions are quite tactical and very effective. … I’m also cognizant that some projects, especially in the space I look at, and even in the cooperative space, there can be very heavily designed intervention that actually offers something when it is around a community of that topic. I’m thinking about Loomio, which is a mediating tool for consensus decision making but it kind of– you build up a set of capacities that are more technical by using a technical tool. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, I just think that happens… There are ways that people divide roles inside worker coops if you’re trying to be horizontal– like Sociocracy is one. You really need a lot of tools if you’re trying to do it right. I don’t know, I’m on the fence about it. I’ve seen the opposite trend.” <img width="2400" height="1314" width_o="2400" height_o="1314" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4f667cca79fc76ba44adb7191c5f9127512577d42d08da6d9ce063d34b3cab8f/soulsafety.jpg" data-mid="120775335" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/4f667cca79fc76ba44adb7191c5f9127512577d42d08da6d9ce063d34b3cab8f/soulsafety.jpg" /> Dominant Design is preoccupied with change, specifically with ‘innovation’ and adding new things. “To design is to devise courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.” (Herbert Simon) “That orientation towards change is both useful and problematic. I think that normative aspect, that orientation towards change is powerful. That’s part of why there’s been a turn towards design in a lot of disciplines, like engaged science and technology studies.” / Designers are “trained to explore possibilities, to see that things can change, to see connections, possibilities.”&nbsp; Two things about Design’s focus on change seem problematic: 1. “Jumping to conclusions/action” and “looking for quick solutions” can make things worse than they already are. &nbsp;Design can be “reactive vs. thoughtful”. 2. Designers focus on “adding things over taking things away”. Design has a “preoccupation with the ‘new’”. It “values the new over the existing as a way of ignoring histories”. Whereas an anchor institution in a community might start from an “infrastructure, or scaffold [that already exists] … the designerly approach is much more green field. It’s like ‘Let’s not even think about what’s already on the ground. Let’s start in this blank space and build everything from scratch.”&nbsp; “Design thinking sometimes doesn’t take advantage of other helpful systems in place” and might “conflict with local structures”. There’s a “framing of a clean slate”. Designers often “look to create new interventions first as opposed to reconfiguring or repurposing existing ones.” <img width="2400" height="959" width_o="2400" height_o="959" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3ed976f3ddf6f3192d39b086d29c103f34d70c4a7895277cb30857a5f309b2f8/gobox-sm.jpg" data-mid="121095539" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3ed976f3ddf6f3192d39b086d29c103f34d70c4a7895277cb30857a5f309b2f8/gobox-sm.jpg" /> Dominant Design is extractive: it builds on the ideas of others but centers the ‘designer’. While design ideas strive to be new and innovative, they often also appear familiar, “‘exporting’ concepts from one place to another where the culture and community might be very different”. The concepts we developed in the exercise “were not that different from things I have already seen. They were different iterations of existing systems.” “Is there a way for design practices to learn from people that is not extractive? What happens when something gets drawn into design practice, are there ways of doing that that are not extractive? What is the relationship of designers to people?” <img width="600" height="390" width_o="600" height_o="390" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ee9d20bd64ee7bf5b9dd316613913e95426a3c1a10bb4ab309f5e89dc0a4c06d/StoopSentry-sm.jpg" data-mid="121095657" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/600/i/ee9d20bd64ee7bf5b9dd316613913e95426a3c1a10bb4ab309f5e89dc0a4c06d/StoopSentry-sm.jpg" /> Dominant Design believes itself to be neutral and objective. Design is harmful when we “think that we are neutral”. “Neutrality is a really big script in design, I think. It goes back to the legacy again about, to be a good designer is to be able to solve any kind of problem. You get the brief from the client or commissioning party, and you’re reactive as opposed to thoughtful.” “When you study international development, a core part of the education is critical thinking about why and how you’re doing your work. And I don’t know enough about design, but it seems to me that maybe that's missing. I see lots of it out there, the ‘decolonizing’, ‘depatriarchize’... but it’s trying to get that into the schools, and have people actually think– why do I want to be a designer? And how am I going to do it? ... For me, it’s realizing that nothing is objective. That Feminist standpoint– who you are influences what kind of things you’re going to design and bring to the table.” –Pip Designs for alternative social structures “might not take into account complicated interpersonal dynamics.” Looking at the ideas generated in our design exercise, “a lot of these different processes have the assumption of buy-in from the community that they were existing in. They wouldn’t function unless there was complete buy-in.” “It’s a really different set of questions if you have that investment in designing for one’s self. Those relationships can be really complicated. There are all kinds of ways that you end up embedded in community with people. And I think those things become contested. I was just thinking about a conversation I had a while ago with someone who reminded me that in the U.S. context, that when neighborhood-based organizing groups designed things (that seemed very innocuous, right?) – the Black Panther Party in the US creating the breakfast program, or creating an education program – that made them political targets as well. Because it was a political action to feed people before they went to school. Specifically to feed young black people before they went to school. So thinking about what it means to take community power in that way, and all the forms that can take.” <img width="2400" height="1231" width_o="2400" height_o="1231" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/bb9a8fc00a35ba67680d09ab469747b353ae28bcc9a2aaf7b83bb3006f4ee9d7/nightlight-sm.jpg" data-mid="121096383" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/bb9a8fc00a35ba67680d09ab469747b353ae28bcc9a2aaf7b83bb3006f4ee9d7/nightlight-sm.jpg" /> Dominant Design is about framing problems and systems. “Starting with a problem” and “the creation of frames/re-framing (thinking of how Kees Dorst defines ‘design’)” made our design exercise designerly. “Analyzing structures” and “tracing/tracking infrastructures to act on them or make new ones” are also forms of framing. “Designing has a lot of problem framing, which is both problematic and useful. ... So that way that you set that boundary around what is the site of an intervention, it could be very productive, and can redraw those in a way that opens up the way they were drawn usually. But also that closes off a lot of avenues that could be productive or it closes off avenues in ways that retrench existing inequality.” “I always see design about making sense of some thing, creating meanings.” … “When you design something – design in terms of something with an output – you frame something. … When you frame possibilities you’re skipping other ones. In order to move forward, … you need to make a choice. In certain moments you need to be disruptive, in other ones you don’t.” Problem framing can be harmful, for example, if designers “consider there is a problem where it is not.” <img width="960" height="540" width_o="960" height_o="540" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a0f809d20c62f18e7e8d1cd7ddfbe68a4d20c4bedd99d343ee1a5794e54323d6/communitycarespledge.jpg" data-mid="121097549" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/960/i/a0f809d20c62f18e7e8d1cd7ddfbe68a4d20c4bedd99d343ee1a5794e54323d6/communitycarespledge.jpg" /> Dominant Design is structured by projects. We think of design practices happening in time-bound ‘projects’ that can be applied to different situations.&nbsp; “Designerly practices may begin to move a project or idea towards a culminating point the designer imagines, even if the community has changed its ideas or needs.” /&nbsp;They may “force the community into a process they would not have done by themselves.”, or “force processes that the community is not ready for.”&nbsp; Designers might have “a set goal that can make people unresponsive to change throughout. When we are obsessed with that, we don’t integrate ourselves with the work of others. … It’s a process, so you’re always in the process, but if you’re in a direction, you’re not responsive. … Maybe that process has to go much slower than we want, or to stay closer to where you are [e.g. demand less change].” At the same time, “I’m supervising a student who is doing work with regional aboriginal communities and … she thinks design’s really good at promoting and being specific about process, because design is method-centric. … she comes from being incredibly responsive to the context and who she’s working with, whereas I think she found design and, design itself defines its practice through relatively agreed terms around methods. When we say design, we can be very clear about what it refers to. We can have a pretty easy consensus around that. And that apparently is a disciplinary strength that she sees. And also by being very clear about the methods and that being used to articulate practice, she felt that would help her with her work. Partly because she’s in a role of mentoring other social workers. So... I was quite reticent about the method-centricity, its generic-ness, the double diamond four-step process, that seems quite pathetic to us, or at least to me, sorry. [But] she sees that at least as a good stepping stone into, ‘If I were to think about a framework for my practice, then how would I realize that?’ That’s been quite an eye-opener for me.” The design-led ‘project’-based process defines relatively “short time commitments” in which to complete a certain scope of work. Since “time is needed to get involved with communities well.”, this prioritizes designers’ goals over community goals, and limits the basic activities of “talking [and] spending time”. <img width="2400" height="1140" width_o="2400" height_o="1140" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b596670cafaa19916d2644a6e56a457444a45ac2f1082d585047494b1ae0d3f2/safetymeetings-sm.jpg" data-mid="121101700" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b596670cafaa19916d2644a6e56a457444a45ac2f1082d585047494b1ae0d3f2/safetymeetings-sm.jpg" /> Dominant Design is responsible for generating ideas, separated from ongoing operations. In a design role, we are “not responsible for the consequences” of the ideas, artefacts, programs, etc. generated through this practice. Since “intention does not equal impact”, this can end up making designers more harmful than helpful. “If designers come up with something, develop something, give form to an idea, it’s up to these other groups of people [organizers, activists, community members, service providers, etc.] to be the ones who are doing implementation. Therefore, it’s the community members that are doing the prototype testing and who are pushing against it to see how it works and how it doesn't work” / Design can bring “hollow ambitions” to a project with a “‘start-up’ effect that they don’t see through to the end” “Service designers are actually designing labor, they’re designing work for other folks to do. Who does that fall on? Do you have the perspective of the person that’s doing the labor or the person that’s imagining the labor?”&nbsp; Looking at the ideas we generated in the design exercise, it was clear that “to get from the idea to actually making it happen, there would definitely have to be a lot more steps involved, and probably we would run into many friction points... for a lot of them it’s like, ‘This sounds great, now how do we get everyone to agree to it and participate in it?’”&nbsp; People who are more embedded in community roles are “quicker to move and adjust to gaps and needs” / They might be quick to prototype solutions at a small scale in response to a need. “In Oakland, we have a couple of systems– just flyers that are like, ‘don’t call the police, call this number __’, so I think there’s people who just jump into action and create things to make solutions immediately.” “Something needs to happen, so let’s try this.” As opposed to designers, community members “are not there on just a project basis, they have long term commitments and... if they enact a specific policy or device or app or whatever, they see the follow through and come back to it.” / “If they’re on their own territory constantly, [community members] can monitor things. [They can] be more responsive than a plan that has been made before.” “There are case studies [on the workshop site] that feel less design-y. And the less design-y projects are the ones that look very practical to me. I can see them implemented right away without any friction. People won’t think of it as a gallery art project, but a thing that’s actually going to be used in community.”&nbsp; There is an “interesting kind of dynamism, a moving back and forth represented on the community side. There are a lot of ‘ands’, like ‘this and also this’, or sets of relations. And maybe interestingly more open-endedness. I’m looking at [post-its listing the kinds of outputs that non-designers produce, like]&nbsp; ‘collective memory’ or ‘knowledge of community’ or ‘building on histories’, these kind of cumulative... there’s something across time.” Workshop Proposal &amp; Framing Police departments across the United States and elsewhere vow to ‘protect and serve’ their publics. However, activists have pulled apart this promise to show that the system of policing is designed not to protect people and communities, but to maintain a particular organization of wealth and power. Originally created to control slaves and immigrant populations [31], the institution of policing has always served some groups while targeting others. In 2015, police killed 1,134 people. 15% of those were African American men between 15-34 years old. This group faced police-related deaths at a rate five times higher than white men of the same age [28]. Overall, contact with police carries deadly risks for racialized poor, Native people, immigrants, Black and Brown youth, LGBTQI and gender-nonconforming people, the homeless, sex workers, and others [7]. Even when people recognize these failings, and sometimes personally experience them, it can be difficult to imagine an alternative. City governments and police themselves often frame policing as the only option to address crime and prevent a descent into chaos and disorder. When people face real or imagined violence and conflict, calling the police is a concrete action to take, even when it may not result in safety or resolution. Yet activists, organizers and everyday neighbors have been enacting alternative forms of justice for generations, simply to keep themselves safe, or explicitly in order to make prisons and policing obsolete [9, 14]. This year’s conference focuses on Participation(s) Otherwise, asking us to broaden our field of vision to see these many histories, presents and futures where people believe, know and act differently from the status quo. For example, the Black Panther Party began policing the police in Oakland, California in 1966, legally bearing arms to monitor the behavior of Oakland Police officers and challenge police brutality. Later on, the Black Panthers developed free breakfast programs for school children, free health clinics, and other public services to address needs that were not being met [26]. In Chiapas, Mexico in 1994, the Zapatistas rebelled against the Mexican government to seize their own territory, where they continue to enact their own social structures, including a justice system based in community accountability [24]. Recently in the United States, an array of prefigurative initiatives enact alternatives to policing, for example the #Letusbreathe Collective occupied a vacant lot in Chicago for 41 days, vowing to address all conflict without resorting to punitive forms of justice or calling the police [21]. Creative Interventions operated temporarily in Oakland, California as a resource center to create and promote community-based responses to interpersonal and especially domestic violence, documenting their learnings in a publicly available ‘Toolkit’ [8]. As strategic and human-centered design becomes familiar in governments and nonprofits, designers are also taking on projects that address policing and the racial disparities of the criminal legal system. For example, the Los Angeles “i‑team” is one of many Innovation Teams funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, built around human-centered design practices. They are working on improving the Los Angeles Police Department’s police recruitment and hiring process to “strengthen and diversify the police force” [6]. And New York City’s plan to replace its famously abusive Rikers Island jail with neighborhood ‘justice hubs’ was generated through a competition called “Justice in Design” [30]. Rather than strengthening the system that already exists, what would it look like for designers to embrace activists’ visions and help build alternative systems? This aligns with the political roots of Participatory Design, focused on alternative futures and democratic changes [10]. However, even when aligned with activists envisioning alternatives, it is important to question what we bring to these issues ‘as a designer’ or when acting in a ‘designerly’ way. Is it possible to contribute to relational, non-hierarchical, cooperative and dynamic systems using a practice that came with the birth of expert knowledge and modern institutions? Professional design began at a time when the determination of social norms was being lifted from regular people in their everyday lifeworlds, and instead decided “heteronomously” by designers, scientists, policy makers, and other professionals [11]. This is inherently opposed to the self-determination for which these activist groups are fighting. Participatory designers fundamentally criticize the forms of expertise inherent in modernist design, arguing for a design practice focused in local knowledge production [4] done consensually together, and focusing on the process rather than the outcome [3]. Instead of rational problem solvers, many participatory designers strive to act as reflective practitioners, facilitating conversations-with-the-material-of-the-situation [25]. Yet participatory designers still take on and facilitate a ‘designerly’ way of working that builds from a modernist tradition, however democratized and modified it may be [3]. What does it mean to be ‘designerly’? In contrast to the focus of science on understanding how things are, design focuses on “how things ought to be”[27]. Design is based in the tangible world of experience – designers value experiential and embodied knowledge, and learn-by-doing through prototypes [15]. Ultimately, ‘designerliness’ is about working with and creating tangible things, or experiences mediated by things, to shape the way we interact with the world. This is often very different from the approach of organizers and activists, for example those listed above. They are also shaping the way we interact with the world, but often working through long-term relationship building and embodied practice. This workshop will question the limitations of using design as a way of thinking to support the creation of these self-determined futures. Is designing systems, experiences, objects, tools and technologies a productive way to support activist visions of the future? If so, how can it be most helpful? And when could a design practice end up misleading or counterproductive instead? *See all references here. __ Advising and facilitation by Christine Hegel and Shana AgidAdditional facilitation by Jane Gormley Ideation, images and discussion by Yoko Akama, Pip Bennet, Hillary Carey, Anjali Nair, Christine Hegel, Yuwei Pan, J Ryan Westphal, Luke Cantarella, Chiara Del Gaudio, Jane Gormley, Hannah Rose Fox, Dawn Walker, Shana Agid, Eleni Andris, Hannah Korsmeyer, Sandra Molina, Anja Neidhardt, and Ying Tang https://designradicalfutures.com/Radical-Design Sat, 09 May 2020 20:00:02 +0000 Design Radical Futures https://designradicalfutures.com/Radical-Design January 2017-May 2019 Radical Design A series of courses and workshops exploring speculative design as a practice to imagine what civic life might look like if we prioritized different values –– Click the images below to explore student work and assignments. <img width="1502" height="1000" width_o="1502" height_o="1000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e23ea030fefec0b57f58f445e9fcc5c35e5bea4617d5eedc6d56c51822035ee5/liangwauson_bacerdosully.jpg" data-mid="79297884" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e23ea030fefec0b57f58f445e9fcc5c35e5bea4617d5eedc6d56c51822035ee5/liangwauson_bacerdosully.jpg" /> <img width="2098" height="1600" width_o="2098" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5bdefbb43fc26a117bfa50e4d7fe7be4af084b62293f0ba316ee2680a92be86f/nonjudgementalspacemaking.jpg" data-mid="79978652" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5bdefbb43fc26a117bfa50e4d7fe7be4af084b62293f0ba316ee2680a92be86f/nonjudgementalspacemaking.jpg" /> <img width="3918" height="2681" width_o="3918" height_o="2681" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e54e498c4a8c504e24ba181645ce6dabc2330589e55c4302e391fa617f909063/krisko-brandon_kleeman-jackson_pan-yuwei.jpg" data-mid="79297881" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e54e498c4a8c504e24ba181645ce6dabc2330589e55c4302e391fa617f909063/krisko-brandon_kleeman-jackson_pan-yuwei.jpg" /> <img width="1000" height="1000" width_o="1000" height_o="1000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/98fa6344e1a4d9cc224bd5235f183ec3793c52b5a12e48c66b84e406bd9c6332/friedman-andrew_holder-ashley_friedman-marleigh_provo3_web.jpg" data-mid="79476825" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/98fa6344e1a4d9cc224bd5235f183ec3793c52b5a12e48c66b84e406bd9c6332/friedman-andrew_holder-ashley_friedman-marleigh_provo3_web.jpg" /> <img width="2400" height="1607" width_o="2400" height_o="1607" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/90540336e282a8111ef5a94a6ad0c6eebc6f496ae76e04a90e2fe1ff0d1edd9a/andris-eleni_schneider-eli_avadhani-mitali.JPG" data-mid="79297879" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/90540336e282a8111ef5a94a6ad0c6eebc6f496ae76e04a90e2fe1ff0d1edd9a/andris-eleni_schneider-eli_avadhani-mitali.JPG" /> <img width="2400" height="1854" width_o="2400" height_o="1854" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9df7b6ebe92fdc2d6fd00402c3e6e8f16b1a6600f8f7e64f311d6283433183e7/shangmimi_specdiagram.gif" data-mid="79929774" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/9df7b6ebe92fdc2d6fd00402c3e6e8f16b1a6600f8f7e64f311d6283433183e7/shangmimi_specdiagram.gif" /> <img width="792" height="612" width_o="792" height_o="612" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ae4f355e9cb76c7eb988190fa72a1086f835eadd11e4db082707b716d91a6dcc/tsueiandrew_collage.jpg" data-mid="79929820" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/792/i/ae4f355e9cb76c7eb988190fa72a1086f835eadd11e4db082707b716d91a6dcc/tsueiandrew_collage.jpg" /> <img width="1690" height="1600" width_o="1690" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b8a705509578764b047bcaffc346f40d5020d4855b8b5fb27a97987937299b4d/xuisabelle_systemmap.jpg" data-mid="79929885" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b8a705509578764b047bcaffc346f40d5020d4855b8b5fb27a97987937299b4d/xuisabelle_systemmap.jpg" /> <img width="2240" height="1600" width_o="2240" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/2984c401e47b493cfe21e60137a4f8e26a478e94c5c18f37c4b6aa626aacf3e9/Davis-Sarah_Jones-Charlotte_Judge-Louisa-Embodiment-RD-SP17-AG.jpg" data-mid="79930011" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/2984c401e47b493cfe21e60137a4f8e26a478e94c5c18f37c4b6aa626aacf3e9/Davis-Sarah_Jones-Charlotte_Judge-Louisa-Embodiment-RD-SP17-AG.jpg" /> Why Radical Design? <img width="1080" height="608" width_o="1080" height_o="608" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5db3df9ef5f40ecd23cb4e4afdfcffaf9d5b00f1abafc690c91476fb859ab78e/futurescone2.gif" data-mid="79481999" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5db3df9ef5f40ecd23cb4e4afdfcffaf9d5b00f1abafc690c91476fb859ab78e/futurescone2.gif" /> In our daily work as designers, we are limited by expectations about what kinds of futures are ‘possible’. Particularly when addressing the needs of vulnerable populations, potentially impactful proposals are often deemed ‘impossible’, not because they defy physical laws or require speculative technology, but because the social system around us prioritizes things like growth, profit, and control over things like care, cooperation, and equity. Our current prioritization of values is not eternal or inevitable, but it does have a strong grip on our imaginations. It is difficult to imagine a world where we prioritize values differently. These Radical Design courses and workshops build on tactics from Speculative Design and Futures Studies to strengthen participant’s capacity to imagine. By designing for provocation and imagination as an end result, rather than designing to implement concepts, these practices allow designers to visualize ideas that do not fit in the world as it is. Radical Design projects strive to walk the line between utopia and dystopia, avoiding a purely positive or negative depiction of reality in order to grapple with the tensions inherent in each possibility.___ The course “Radical Design: Making Civic Experiences” was offered at the Sam Fox School at Washington University in St. Louis between Spring 2017 - Spring 2019. Workshops have been offered at:Imagining America (Chicago, October 2018)Creative Reaction Lab (St. Louis, June 2018)Commonbound Conference, New Economy Coalition (St. Louis, June 2018)Washington University AIGA (St. Louis, April 2017)and as a part of other Washington University courses such as Designing Creativity and Design &amp; Research https://designradicalfutures.com/The-Landed-Gentry Sun, 09 Aug 2020 16:59:01 +0000 Design Radical Futures https://designradicalfutures.com/The-Landed-Gentry <img width="1502" height="1000" width_o="1502" height_o="1000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e23ea030fefec0b57f58f445e9fcc5c35e5bea4617d5eedc6d56c51822035ee5/liangwauson_bacerdosully.jpg" data-mid="79462126" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e23ea030fefec0b57f58f445e9fcc5c35e5bea4617d5eedc6d56c51822035ee5/liangwauson_bacerdosully.jpg" /> Spring 2019 Washington University in St. Louis Radical Design: Making Civic Experiences Sully Bacerdo and Wauson Liang The Landed GentryThe final project of the Radical Design semester-length course asks students to create an artifact from a world with different priorities – in this case, a world without Capitalism. Throughout the semester, students worked in groups to understand what Capitalism is, and to imagine how things might be different if we prioritized different values: public instead of private, or care instead of profit. Sully and Wauson’s project, shown above, builds on their learning about Distributism. As they described in their presentation, “A key tenet of [Distributism] is that Capitalism and Communism are two sides of the same coin in which you always have a very centralized distribution of wealth. Geographically and amongst certain wealthy elites, there’s always going to be a much higher proportion of power, land, and especially means of production. This economic theory that was popular in the late 1800s, early 1900s, was the idea that the only way we could overcome that barrier would be to distribute, (hence the name), the means of production across the widest range of people possible.”“That got us thinking about land, and how land is your means of production and is often closely tied to your occupation. In modern society, the Proletariat or working class, lower class people are fully reliant on economic systems that are centered in cities, around banks, around corporations, around rich people. They have to live in this periphery and orbit and commute into these centers of wealth. They rely on it for the ability to put food on the table, to have a living and a job. That gets into our title and our value of the Landed Gentry. We first looked at land, we were exploring ‘What if everyone in our society could have their own piece of land and thus have their own means of production on that land?’ <img width="1220" height="1000" width_o="1220" height_o="1000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7de27253f08bf72ce9a12e60c6e70426e0f6cb28e52d5dc113073b1ec9c13240/liangwauson_bacerdosully-sketch01.jpg" data-mid="79475867" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/7de27253f08bf72ce9a12e60c6e70426e0f6cb28e52d5dc113073b1ec9c13240/liangwauson_bacerdosully-sketch01.jpg" /> <img width="1343" height="1000" width_o="1343" height_o="1000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d75442630f9c842afc15ac03e45741c3cf814796f767e713b21a7b5e38c95acb/liangwauson_bacerdosully-sketch02.jpg" data-mid="79475868" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/d75442630f9c842afc15ac03e45741c3cf814796f767e713b21a7b5e38c95acb/liangwauson_bacerdosully-sketch02.jpg" /> “It started off as this mechanical idea that people would have their plot of land that they could up and move, go anywhere, have freedom of mobility, produce whatever they wanted on that land. It evolved into a more biological concept, cells traversing across an organism. We thought it’s less important the idea that a person has a physical plot of land to live on, and more important that we use our artifact to manifest this relationship between the person and their own ability to sustain themselves. We converted the idea from a plot of land into this artifact, which is essentially a external, completely mobile mini-farm, mini-plot of land that goes with you everywhere and is integrated into you.” “In a society where everyone has this thing, nobody can be disenfranchised from their means of production.”“It’s always with you, it moves with you everywhere. No one can take that away from you. You never have to worry about whether or not there’s food on the table, whether or not you can produce and sustain for yourself. What kinds of social interactions? What kinds of cultural possibilities? What would the world be like if people didn’t have to worry about having occupations that they didn’t love, didn’t enjoy, that were physically and emotionally harmful to them? And were just able to explore their passions and do what they wish because they know they never have to rely on a job for food?” <img width="2508" height="1600" width_o="2508" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9a0b5ed854070601306d37c8e71b3d7b8046a49c0cf61d91690d2c151f965599/bacerdosully_COLLAGE.jpg" data-mid="79980079" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/9a0b5ed854070601306d37c8e71b3d7b8046a49c0cf61d91690d2c151f965599/bacerdosully_COLLAGE.jpg" /> https://designradicalfutures.com/Radical-Design-Workshops Sat, 15 Aug 2020 20:29:23 +0000 Design Radical Futures https://designradicalfutures.com/Radical-Design-Workshops <img width="2098" height="1600" width_o="2098" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5bdefbb43fc26a117bfa50e4d7fe7be4af084b62293f0ba316ee2680a92be86f/nonjudgementalspacemaking.jpg" data-mid="79980271" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5bdefbb43fc26a117bfa50e4d7fe7be4af084b62293f0ba316ee2680a92be86f/nonjudgementalspacemaking.jpg" />Fall 2018Imagining America National GatheringRadical Design for Speculative Futures“Non-judgemental Space Making Device” made by participants Radical Design workshopsRadical Design workshops get participants thinking about how the designed things, processes and systems around us might be different if we prioritized different values. They encourage participants to think about implications – both positive and negative – that may come from different priorities.WORKSHOP STRUCTURE Each event is focused on a specific system: policing, voting, capitalism, etc. We begin by listing the values participants see prioritized by the current system. For example, Commonbound participants discussed how Capitalism priortizes efficiency, growth, and profit. Next, participants split into small groups of 2-3 people and choose a value that is de-prioritized by the current system. If a current value of policing is punishment, a group might choose to center their thinking on problem solving or transformation. They would then work to imagine a system that achieves public safety (the promise of policing) by prioritizing transformation instead of punishment.A series of excercises guides groups along the way, asking them to reflect on the value itself, imagine multiple ways a world that prioritizes this value would be different from our own, and then writing and drawing about experiences related to (e.g.) public safety within that world.At the end of the workshop, participants make an artefact that would exist within the world they’ve imagined. They’re encouraged to build at 1:1 scale and to share how it would be used with the group. This exercise builds on The Extrapolation Factory’s 99 cent futures workshops that guides participants in making products that would exist in 99 cent shops and dollar stores of the future. WORKSHOPS HAVE BEEN OFFERED AT...Imagining America (Chicago, October 2018)Creative Reaction Lab (St. Louis, June 2018)Commonbound Conference, New Economy Coalition (St. Louis, June 2018)Washington University AIGA (St. Louis, April 2017)and as a part of other Washington University courses such as Designing Creativity and Design &amp; ResearchIf you would like to host a Radical Design workshop or project with your group or organization, please email designradicalfutures@gmail.com. <img width="1236" height="1600" width_o="1236" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a5b8266b919ecd12fe70c519f939108c95d7a66612ff441d32fe19d7bf1efbec/raddes_workshop_civility_Page_1.jpg" data-mid="80454929" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/a5b8266b919ecd12fe70c519f939108c95d7a66612ff441d32fe19d7bf1efbec/raddes_workshop_civility_Page_1.jpg" /> <img width="1236" height="1600" width_o="1236" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ff1366644ba20bd78715102bac0f91818ce2af026f2b8f9d648a9578d48e1704/raddes_workshop_civility_Page_2.jpg" data-mid="80454932" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ff1366644ba20bd78715102bac0f91818ce2af026f2b8f9d648a9578d48e1704/raddes_workshop_civility_Page_2.jpg" /> <img width="2133" height="1600" width_o="2133" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7be3ad7c6aba469949cb20ced9ecce347852e8156c97dd9c766b47186ff56c02/civility.jpg" data-mid="80454734" border="0" data-scale="100" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/7be3ad7c6aba469949cb20ced9ecce347852e8156c97dd9c766b47186ff56c02/civility.jpg" />Spring 2019Radical Design: Making Civic Experiences at Washington University in St. LouisFirst class, Radical Design workshopRachel Roberts &amp; Mimi Shang <img width="2397" height="1600" width_o="2397" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/febacaf6a11ac98a26b94df2c0b82913219c8fbbf710b6e44fbe99a611cf8893/commonboundraddes02_byKurtHutchinson.jpg" data-mid="80937300" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/febacaf6a11ac98a26b94df2c0b82913219c8fbbf710b6e44fbe99a611cf8893/commonboundraddes02_byKurtHutchinson.jpg" />Photo by Kurt Hutchinson.&nbsp; <img width="2397" height="1600" width_o="2397" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/febacaf6a11ac98a26b94df2c0b82913219c8fbbf710b6e44fbe99a611cf8893/commonboundraddes02_byKurtHutchinson.jpg" data-mid="80937300" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/febacaf6a11ac98a26b94df2c0b82913219c8fbbf710b6e44fbe99a611cf8893/commonboundraddes02_byKurtHutchinson.jpg" /><img width="2397" height="1600" width_o="2397" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/febacaf6a11ac98a26b94df2c0b82913219c8fbbf710b6e44fbe99a611cf8893/commonboundraddes02_byKurtHutchinson.jpg" data-mid="80937300" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/febacaf6a11ac98a26b94df2c0b82913219c8fbbf710b6e44fbe99a611cf8893/commonboundraddes02_byKurtHutchinson.jpg" /><img width="2397" height="1600" width_o="2397" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/febacaf6a11ac98a26b94df2c0b82913219c8fbbf710b6e44fbe99a611cf8893/commonboundraddes02_byKurtHutchinson.jpg" data-mid="80937300" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/febacaf6a11ac98a26b94df2c0b82913219c8fbbf710b6e44fbe99a611cf8893/commonboundraddes02_byKurtHutchinson.jpg" /> Video by @doitbetterdesign.&nbsp; Summer 2018Commonbound Conference, New Economy Coalition Radical Design for Speculative Futures <img width="2133" height="1600" width_o="2133" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d0f1dbd111ed3c7d7df88b88088cf5439c775f056d91cf6a6b80795c05db77eb/CRL-01.jpg" data-mid="80938190" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/d0f1dbd111ed3c7d7df88b88088cf5439c775f056d91cf6a6b80795c05db77eb/CRL-01.jpg" /> Summer 2018Design to Better [Our Community] Summer Academy, Creative Reaction LabRadical Design