the truth lies in dreams of many: reflections of a design student on changing roles in design...

8/13/2019 The Truth Lies in Dreams of Many: Reflections of a Design Student on Changing Roles in Design Practice

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THE TRUTH LIES IN

DREAMS OF MANY:REFLECTIONS OF A

DESIGN STUDENT ON

CHANGING ROLES INDESIGN PRACTICE


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Introduction Slovenia: Social

Values Lost and

Found

24-10-2012

Self-Inspiration

Attempt No.1

Bauhaus, a Factory

of Universal Truths

Framing the

Problems:

Contemporary

Matters-of-Concern?

The Theatre of

Gatherings

In Conversation

with Designers:

What Does it Mean

to Work as a Design

Practitioner Today?

A Transformative

Approach to

Work: From

Creative Industries

to Creative

Communities

Transformative

Approach to the Self

From an Individual

to a Collective

Micro-Societies as

New Laboratories

for the Future

Conclusion Bibliography

MADesignFutures

Disertation GajaMenariOsole

TeruthLiesinDreamsofMany:

ReflectionsofaDesignStudentonChangingRolesin

DesignPractice

WritingasdesignstudentintransitionReadingonbehalfof

designpractitionerintransition

MentorsHannahJohnesExternalMentorBiancaElzenbaumer

Printed

11thSeptember2013Goldsmiths,UniversityofLondon

Tankyoufortakingcare!:BiancaElzenbaumer,HannahJones,JohnWood,Saatucin,TommyBeavitt,NinaVidiIvani,SvenjaBickert,ElenaBusheva,EloisaArtuso,XiYang,MinaArko,ChristinaPapazoglou,IrmaMenari,MarinkaMeznari,AnaKerin.

Gaja Menari-Osole


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Introduction


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I am writing this dissertation as a design student

having experienced the privilege o this particular

education, reflecting on the roles played by design

practice in our society today and raming my own seto values through a process o exploration.

Tis work consists in an intense, practitioner-led

discussion that explores possible ways o working/

designing by recognising, problematising and

embedding current discomorts within societies intothe realm o design practice. Tis proposal explores

the transitional (non)state o design practitioners,

who are interested in changing their roles to resonate

with current societal needs as well as in possibilities

that have emerged rom a period o alling economical

wealth and widespread recognition o environmentaldepletion.

With the term transitional designI am marking a

transormational state o the design practices that

grew rom modernist design disciplines whose

paradigm was defined by the Bauhaus School andre-raming their ocus towards more embodied,


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collectivist and caring ways o understanding design

practice as a means o conronting ongoing societal

and environmental concerns.

Processes and times o transition1are (non)states

o rupture, conusion, wandering, imagining,

conronting, searching, ailing, laughing. In talking

about transitional stages representing a state o

becoming in temporal as well as ormal terms, I aim

to capture some o the non-unified, multiariousdirections that the proposed considerations might

express. In recognising the inapplicability o old

rameworks, their primary role is shifed to one o

serving as explorations, critical reflections and partial

propositions.

I open this journey rom the grounding o my

previous living and working experiences in Slovenia, a

ormerly socialistic country, that have had a big impact

on how I see, value and engage with lie and design

practice. Te writing continues with the establishment

o an atmosphere, a reflection on first observationsafer coming to study in London. Bringing in the

1 Transition is the process or a period of changing from onestate or condition to another.Oxord Dictionaries (2013) [Online] Avaialble at: http://ox-

orddictionaries.com/definition/english/transition [Accessed20 August 2013].


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perspective o nomadic sel, this sequence is intended

to expose the ragile state o becoming through

experiencing and engaging within the environment

that surrounds us.

By analysing the modernist origins o contemporary

design practice and recognising inadequancy o

their seemingly objective aproaches, I introduce a

theoretical discourse o Lautours matters-o-concern,

which helps me to build my thoughts around designpractice as a contemporary problem solving and

collaborative discipline, ramed around finding

practical solutions or our shared concerns. I started

to realise that design needs to set up new grounds o

collectivity in order to perorm research led practice

in the direction o reaching out towards welcometransormational changes.

Afer talking with colleagues rom my course, I have

noticed and started to think about the gap between

available working opportunities and new, change-

driven practices that are being conceptualised withinthe educational environment.


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With exploration o current working opportunities

and uture design aspirations I am raming a

set o propositions, or designers in transition.

ransormative actions to work and towards the sel,seemed almost inavitabile, i desing wants to work

towards re-estabilishing the commons o nature.

Since design practice will hopeully move towards a

recognition o the inevitable importance o collective

and inter-disciplinary engagement with an ongoingfinancial, social and environmental crisis, it might

be interesting or the reader to reflect on some o

the contemporary eminist ethical discourses that

are discarding previous identity constructs and

introducing more subjective, inter-relational and

fluid modes o recognising our agency and impact incontemporary society.

Acknowledging the subjective, embodied, critical

as well as partially explored nature o this writing,

I intentionally aim not to give the reader a definite

and linear set o guides to ollow but rather propose acollage-like aggregation o triggers and reflections on


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practice. Trough examples, stories and research that

might evoke reflection and discussion potentially

leading to action this work aims to transorm

engagement within the readers own practice.

Structuring the thought o eminist philosopher Rosi

Braidotti, this work comes into existence as a nomadic

subject in which [t]his figuration expresses the desire

or an identity made o transitions, successive shifs,

and coordinated changes, without and against anessential unity (1994: 22). In this way I am exploring

and searching around common areas o concern

rom different perspectives, constructing an identity

o meaning through the process o writing and

reflecting. Te text has no rigid ending or beginning,

thereore the different parts o the text can be read bythemselves in isolation or in the context o other parts

or as a whole.

Te ormat o the writing explores various knowledge

representations and perspectives that come into

existence in terms o writing style and quality. Te textis supported by the visual structure, which ormalises a


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gradient o maniestations rom academic, scientific to

poetic, playul and personal. Speaking in this manner

I would like to question the orm o the current

academic language and by doing so to bring into itssphere an embodied, always partial perspective.


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Slovenia:

Social Values Lostand Found


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2

I will use the passage below to situate my

perspective as the writer in terms o explaining the

background o my specific areas o interest, criticality

and concern as a design practitioner. Doing so willprovide me with the ground rom which to illustrate

and explain how and why I think the questions o ways

o working, socialising, responsibility and care are

connected with the way practitioners relate to design

practice.

What is perceived in Western Europe as a threat to

civilization is celebrated, in the transition-charmed

countries, as an ascension toward civilization. In the

Balkans specifically, transition styles itself in Orientalist

terms, in the terms of an imperative to join Europe.

While in Europe, and elsewhere in the world, moreand more people reject the false alternative: liberalism

or barbarism, the people of the Balkans are being

submitted to neo-liberal policies in the name of shedding

their Balkan barbarism.1

1 Monik, R. (2003) Social Change in the Balkans. [Online],

Available at: http://monumenttotransormation.org/atlas-

o-transormation/html/b/balkans/social-change-in-the-balkans-rastko-mocnik.html, [23. August 2013].


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Coming rom Slovenia, an ex-socialist country, I

grew up with a value system based on supporting and

appreciating social cohesion. Our living standard was

high. Everybody I knew had a job as well as spare timeto relax or travel. I used to live with my mother in a

small house that embraced our amily apartments.

My mother was a reelancer; when she had to go to

work Barbara, a girl slightly older than me, used to

play with me and sleep over when I was alone. She

came rom a mixed amily her ather was a Bosnianconstruction worker and her mother a school cook

rom the countryside. Tey could not afford a lot in

terms o luxuries but their table was always ull o

ood. We spent a lot o the time playing outside on

the street with the other children living in the same

quarter, running around, roller-skating and drawingwith chalkboards on the asphalt roads. My mother

always invited her to go on holiday or spend weekends

with us. Every year we went to the seaside somewhere

in Croatia, to ski somewhere in the Slovenian Alps, to

climb mountains, jump into the rivers or to visit my

grandparents in the countryside.


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main access road to the city. Te shif o the political

agenda embodied a systematic deprivation o social

values, ways o working; how we shared and used

public spaces. It resulted in a non-transparentand unjust restructuring process, which caused

an impoverishment o social health care, public

education, local companies and industry.

As mentioned, the process o transition resulted

in a great decrease o the social cohesion that wasvanishing rom the different types o communities

connected by locality, proession or age. Te blocks

o flats in which I used to live, or example, used

to belong to the community o residents rom

the University; they had been mostly built or the

proessors and intellectuals o that era. Beore thebreakup o Yugoslavia, residents could buy their

apartments or a subsidised price; this was not the

case or us anymore. As the years passed, a lot o old

people died and younger people started to moving

in. Te sense o a living community (that expressed

itsel in trust, random conversations, borrowing salt or

flour rom neighbours on Sundays when stores were


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shut down, just to name ew) gradually disappeared

and nobody seemed to care to know each other

anymore. Te young people who moved in worked all

the time and did not have an interest in engaging inthe neighbourly activities. Once an old lady died and

nobody knew about it or three days.

Te common trends o countries in transition

gradually maniested over the past ten years in

terms o a decrease in social solidarity, a rise in theunemployment rate, a decline in the standard o living,

an increase in poverty, the rise o individualism and

the emergence o social groups at risk such as the

youth and the elderly (Monik, 2003).

Te realities o entering into the glossy Western wayo living, didnt seem to fit anymore to our original

aspirations. In 2010, at a time when financial crisis

was urther accentuating the deteriorated situation,

I started to work with a collective o architects,

artisans and designers. We met afer a riend came

back rom London and wanted to do something

together though we did not know what exactly. At


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shaped the final outcome o the space. With the

support o the local journalists, we managed to engage

more participants as well as gained sponsors or

constructing the space. Te design o the final spacedepended on the people who engaged in workshops,

as well as the objects, collected through the process

(Menari Osole, 2013).

Collaborating with G-R-U-P-A, was somehow the best

working experience I had until now. It was the firsttime, that I elt as though I was doing things right, as

a designer. Unortunately, most o the time our work

was underpaid or voluntary, which inevitably was the

reason the group slowly ell apart, since all o us were

searching or other opportunities to make a living.

Starting with eleven members, we were eventually lefwith three and in the end, all o us made new plans

or our utures. I decided to apply or postgraduate

study in order to continue raming, exploring and

experiencing such practice in a supportive and mind-

opening environment.


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24-10-2012

Self-InspirationAttempt No.1


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I came to London to fall in love. o breathe the

air of excitement and uncertainty at the same time. o

be inspired and seduced.1

It is almost 5 oclock in the morning and my body is

too nervous to sleep. Te lectures and experiences

that I have had so far are not exactly what I wanted or

expected. Instead of a flirtation, I feel like I have fallen

into a new serious relationship, one with a structured

set of rules and a clear direction of motion.

At the moment I do not believe and here I am

speaking with the innocent voice of my subjective-self

in the ideas and systems that are jostling to occupy

my brain and force me to accept a self-organised

religion. We live in times where it is now impossibleto set up systems based on detached, abstract ideas.

Tey have to grow out of real-life experiences,

experiments, observations, local knowledge, tangible

connections. But am I the only one who is wedded to

that kind of thinking?

1 Self-Inspiration Attempt No.1 is a personal blog entry.

Menari Osole, G. (2013) Self-Inspiration Attempt No.1

[Online] Available at: http://design-futures.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/self-inspiration-attempt-n1.html,

[23. August 2013]


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Old systems are now just a big empty frame whose

picture ran away and which is now standing in

front of us naked and cold. A big, empty form and a

hypothetical content, simultaneously coexisting andfighting for our votes. And all we are able to recognise

is the old, smelly frame, stalking us like a big phantom,

slowly but surely imploding into the forgotten land of

universal truth.

But I think the content is always the same. At the endof the day we all want to feel loved and necessary.

So, are love and the feeling of purpose now walking

around us naked, begging us to dress them in a new

coat. How could this look?

I dont want to fight old systems with new a one. Ithink the answer is not hidden in a new continent, nor

the moon, and we wont find freedom in killing the

natives in order to vomit our unrealised dreams into

the resulting tabula rasa. We should see and accept

what is around us. Find the guidelines and learn how

to grasp the information we can no longer read. I

think we are living in exciting times, times in which it


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is incumbent on us to set up a multitude of new ways

and sensations for future generations to follow and

rely upon.

Te night is slowly turning into a new day so it is

time to make a contract with myself. I promise at this

exact moment that I will constantly try to transform

this education journey into something exciting and

fulfilling. I am surrounded by super-interesting

classmates from different backgrounds from all overthe world, a great workshop, the best roommates

in the most culturally rich city in the world. I need

to scope out the content from the frame and create

something beautiful.


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Bauhaus, a Factory

of Universal TruthsTe school is the servant o the workshop, and will one

day be absorbed in it. Tereore there will be no teachers

or pupils in the Bauhaus but masters, journeymen, and

apprentices. Te manner o teaching arises rom the

character o the workshop: Organic orms developed

rom manual skills. Avoidance o all rigidity; priority

o creativity; reedom o individuality, but strict study

discipline [...].Collaboration by the students in the

work o the masters. Securing o commissions, also

or students. Mutual planning o extensive, Utopian

structural designs public buildings and buildings or

worship aimed at the uture. Collaboration o all

masters and students architects, painters, sculptors

on these designs with the object o gradually achieving a

harmony o all the component elements and parts thatmake up architecture ...1

1 Gropius, W. (1919) Bauhaus Maniesto and Program.

[Online], Available at: http://www.thelearninglab.nl/

resources/Bauhaus-maniesto.pd, [6. August 2013].


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Contemporary design is positioned in the

moment o re-consideration, in the process o moving

rom the modernist design production o accessible

goods defined by the Bauhaus School to placing itsocus on finding ways o responding to contemporary

societal and environmental concerns.

When I was undertaking the undergraduate course

in Ljubljana, students could only apply or two design

courses: visual communication and industrial design.In Slovenia in recent years, during the ongoing

economic crisis and restructuring process, a significant

proportion o local industry was simply shut down,

leaving behind large numbers o unemployed workers.

But design schools were still producing new industrial

and visual communication designers. Te implicationso the situation are practically skilled practitioners

who in many cases lack a comprehensive critical

approach toward market and design production.

Tis brie revision o the educational system o the

Bauhaus school will allow me to develop an exposition

o the ideals by which design practice has been ramed


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2) Bauhaus Costumes (1920): The

visionary imagination of the new

technological generation.


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Teir highest ideal was to construct a holistic image o

living and working spaces, taking care or the unified

identity rom the concept to every practical detail it

could resemble the building o an organism o a kind.Te amous Maniesto o Walter Gropius began with

the sentence: Te ultimate aim o all creative activity is

a building! (1919) Te statement was a response to the

lart-pour-lartisticmovement that was encapsulating

creative orces in isolation, serving only to stimulate

an artistic audience and closing the doors to the outerworld. In this sense the Bauhaus movement was on a

quest to open up the process o artistic creation so that

it could serve society in a democratic and holistic way.

However the Gesamtkunstwerk(the complete artwork)

that was conceptualised around this comprehensiveway o thinking about design production was

contextualised and tightly embedded to the times

in which it was developed and determined by the

setting up o decisive boundaries in and between the

outer world. It was constructed in an age o industrial

development and accompanied by a sense o limitless

possibility. As design historian Nikolaus Pevsner


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3) The Bauhaus masters in 1926, on the

roof of the Bauhaus building, left to right:

Lszl Moholy-Nagy, Herbert Bayer,Joost Schmidt, Walter Gropius, Marcel

Breuer, Wassily Kandinsky.


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How do we seethings? is the starting question that

a contemporary designer is required to reconsider.

For many years design education, as well as practice,

was based on didactic systems o abstract visualrepresentations, which started the students journey

with a dot, which developed into a line, then a

square, a cube, and finally a house. Te constructed

objectivity was set up to represent human aspirations

transcending any sense o a boundary or context. In

this deep technical context o rational vision, it wassomehow successully playing to be neutral. Without

any real consideration Bauhauss vision was set to

design the world as i it were a dead, mechanical

space; one that could be understood chiefly through

externalising the problems to make them technically

manageable (Weber 2013).

Such approaches to making products were embedded

into the value system o design education, that was

spread throughout the countries o Europe and

North America, ollowing Gropius initial wish to

merge art, sculpture and architecture into a craf o

creative imagination. Although somewhere on the


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way the link between architecture and design was lost,

students were still engaging with the practice, through

craf workshops and lessons about composition,

typography, colour studies, painting, modellingProducts that were providing the reason or

developing industrial landscapes produced a certain

image o practice that was primary linked to the

mechanised production in order to rise the standard

o living by producing accessible domestic goods.

Te project o Modernisation, which is still embedded

in the present reality o our everyday, was ocused

on developing society in a very homogenous way.

According to the design proessor Fern Lerner,

the modernist vision o Bauhaus school was more

concerned with the quest or exploring universalprinciples than with concentrating on specific, real-

world applications (2005: 225).

Te way the industry works today is that it transorms

creative individuals into producers o the immaterial

labour o the cultural content o the commodities

(Lazzarato, 1996), through activities that rame


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new cultural and artistic trends, norms and even

public opinions. Designers as creators o poetic,

yet pragmatic ideas, are the perect target groups

o such market policies. Stuck in a orm o a newmass intellectuality (Lazzarato, 1996), they become

some sort o messengers based on the pathways o

the market. I, due to the circumstances in which it

operates, design is considered as a problem-solving

tool, it also requently creates sel-generated problems

in order to solve them. Tus the questions are posed:what would need to be changed or design practice

to work towards public and environmental interest?

How can we move away rom the conceptual rames o

Bauhaus school and construct new ways o thinking,

doing and perceiving the practice that would resonate

with our common aspirations as well as attainablepossibilities outside the educational environment?

How can design practice be liberated rom the

product-actory paradigm?

Gropius plan to push the visionary programme

towards re-establishing the artist within the context

o society, creatively advancing the endeavours


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o modern civilisation, to develop broader, richer

horizons (Lerner, 2005: 217) clearly needs to be re-

appropriated in order to prepare uture generations o

designers to respond to the contexts o our own times.


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Framing the Problems:

Contemporary Matters-of-Concern?

[T]he objects of science and technology the aislesof supermarkets, financial institutions, medical

establishments, computer networks - even the catwalks

of fashion shows offer paramount examples of hybrid

forums and agoras, of the gathering that have been

eating away at the older realm of pure objects bathing in

the clear light of the modernist gaze.1

1 Latour, B. (2005) From Realpolitik to Dingpolitik An

introduction to making things public. In Bruno Latour &

Peter Weibel: Making Tings Public Atmospheres oDemocracy catalogue o the show at ZKM, Cambridge MA,

MI Press, pp. 23.


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Te absence o political vision, or ideological

or intellectual paths o construction (Baladrn,

Havrnek, 2010), in the second hal o the 20th

century, produced a society that lacked a perspectiveon motivation and meaning. What kind o view would

a designer need to appropriate in order to transgress

the production o apolitical aesthetics o universal

truths that have been developed over the course

o the last century and to embrace an aesthetic o

human-nature relations? Knowledge powers need tobe re-directed toward an embedding o the limits and

potentials o specific environments that would lead

to the creation o greater social, environmental and

political stability. Looking at contemporary design

practice through the lens o the eminist philosopher

Donna Haraways theory o situated knowledgesand rench philosopher Bruno Latours thoughts

on objects as matters-of-concern, I would like to

rame a discussion that could potentially lead to the

development o a transormative point o view.

Contemporary modernity stands on an unstable

ground. Tis instability results in repeated questioning


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and searching or new alternatives, new interpretations

o what we mean by civilisational development.

How could design, at this moment o the ongoing

global crisis o humanity, take the role o a sel-transormative actor?

According to Italian theorist and activist Franco

Berardi the moment we will lose the relationship

between the signifier and the signified by the presence of

the body, we will lose our relationship to the world. Andthat marks the stage where our relationship to the world

becomes purely functional, operational [...] (2011).

A change in the position and relation o the design

object has the potential to recast the way in which

we relate to the world that surround us. In orderto achieve that, a shif in perspectives is inevitable.

op-down approaches o design practice have to be

questioned since objectivised universalism permit a

view that could not provide an understanding o the

situation o tensions, resonances, transormations,

resistances, and complicities (Haraway 1988) o the

living world around us.


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5.) A Model for a Qualitative Society (1986)

Palle Nielsen: Changing the perspective of

seeing likewise allows us to realise thatdesign is not an agency of an objective,

passive matter-of-facts (Latour, 2005).


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Te ground-up perspective permits a slowing

down o our restless minds and deconstructs the

disciplined, objectivist knowledge o efficiency-seeking practice. Te view rom the body puts the

designer in a position o a subjective translator, in

a position that is always interpretive, critical and

partial. Tis position establishes us on the ground o

diverse opinions rom which we are aced by the view

rom the body always a complex, contradictory,structuring and structured body versus the view

rom the above, rom nowhere, rom simplicity

(Harraway, 1988: 589).

Changing the perspective o seeing likewise allows

us to realise that design is not an agency o anobjective, passive matter-o-acts (Latour, 2005),

as they have been called by French sociologist o

science Bruno Latour . Te entangled nature o acts

is interlaced with and within a complex network

o human-object relations. Teir inter-relational

character transorms them into issues, which direct

our orientation and change our living environment.


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6) One of G-R-U-P-As, a group of architects, designers

and artisans, main concern was framed around opening

opportunities for discussion and collaboration throughdesign process in order to provide work for the group

and for others.


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!"# !"#%&'#

() *%&"#'+,-.Give me one matter of concern and I will show you the

whole earth and heavens that have to be gathered to

hold itfirmly in place? [] e critic is not the one who

debunks, but the one who assembles. e critic is not the

one who lis the rugs from under the feet of the naive

believers, but the one who offers the participants arenas

in which to gather.1

1 Latour, B. (2004) Why Has Critique Run out of Steam?

From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern. [Online],

Available at: http://www.bruno-latour.fr/sites/default/files/89-CRITICAL-INQUIRY-GB.pdf, [6. August 2013].


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/0 1'2 34&'. 567890: ;4.&%+,%#'(

?('@."(AB C A#')('D%&+E# #F%DA=# ()

!"# !"#%&'# () *%&"#'+,-.2


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e eatre of Gatherings2is a performative

space for embodied gatherings, a space for learning

through playing. It explores a collaborative probing

of risky, playful and tentative future scenarios, basedon thinking-through-action about our common

futures and areas of shared concern. It is conceived

to serve as a prototyping tool for imagining hidden

potentialities. While not wanting to be pretentious

or too serious, it sets out to provoke a rethinking that

leads towards the possibility of a re-creation of arenasof political engagement. e eatre of Gatherings

thus takes responsibility for researching important

issues that human and non-human participants share

in this theatre called the world. It includes elements

of unpredictability, play, spontaneity, embodied

knowledge, theory and practice. It is an exploratorytool that sets out to evoke discussions about shared

issues of concern through the means of performative

exercises.

2 I have coined the term e eatre of Gatherings to markthe performative nature of the method which provides

speculative political implications.

e eatre of Gathering is based on the Sustainable Hero

workshop that was conceptualised and facilitated by MA

Design Futures students at Goldsmiths design department

in February 2013. It was a two-hour workshop planned

for a group of BA design students that generated future

scenarios which looked creatively into some contemporary

environmental and social problems faced in Britain.e

outcomes are presented on pages 8-11.


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e section below introduces the tool in the form

of a game by providing instructions for players and

explaining the reasons behind the steps of the chosen

format.3

Performing Scenarios as an Exercise for

Opening Designers Perspectives

e game is a metaphor for alternative ways of

reasoning and thinking about design practice,

uncovering new opportunities for designers in termsof taking responsibility for addressing relevant issues

and thinking about future.

Using a method of future-scenario and role-play

allows actors to explore and envision plausible

alternative projections of a specific part of the future(Fahey, Randall in Evans, 1999). e format gives

an opportunity to analyse current problematics and

project their values towards more desirable situations.

e tool, that picks somethodological approach of

so called intuitive logic is focusing upon changing

mindsets, so that [actors] can anticipate different

future worlds (Evans, 1999).

3 Rules of this game are attached in the booklet.


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e form of a futuristic play encourages the involved

to think about things matters-of-concern in a

imaginative way, without putting up borders or beinglimited in terms of what is possible or impossible.

Performing the roles helps participants to experience

the solutions more vividly, as well as giving them a

chance to step into the mode of being, from which

they can release themselves from their everyday

roles or ego-selves and give new forms to relationalactivities.

Choosing Personal Values

e game starts by setting up small groups of actors.

Each individual in the team is asked to choose three

professional values as a practitioner. e value-ledapproach will set a base for bringing forth ethical

priorities when tackling complex problems. It helps

players with decision-making processes and to clarify

the directions of focus.


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Understanding the Issues

e actors choose articles that describe contemporary

social, economical or environmental problematics

that they relate to.

e raised issue is chosen froma newspaper, book, shared concern Issues might

include topics like climate change, technology and

development, sharing resources, waste management,

information overload, energy use, social deprivation

Writing a ManifestoAer the presentation of the articles, each group

choses a theme that they feel the most inclined

towards. Aer reading the content of the subject,

they are asked to choose five group values from their

previous individual propositions. ey have to create

a collaborative set of values, which they will later useas a basis for framing their practice. Identifying values

for their problem-solving activities can help players

to understand the priorities when framing desired

futures.


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Constructing a Scenario

(Discussion, Sketches, Brainstorm)

Armed with the values and the problem, players are

asked to start building up scenarios and characters.e goal of the game is to perform a five to ten minute

scenario in which players have to present imaginative

solutions based on the problems depicted. Using

the role-play method, students can create imaginary

scenarios based on situated contexts, improvising and

following intuitive decisions.

Backdrops and Props

In order to act out the role more vividly and think

more clearly about the details, the actors are asked to

design their own props such as the backdrop (a scene)

and a costume. e props serve as a supportive poolof knowledge and allow an ethnographic analysis


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of constructed tools that represent a mixture of our

everyday life mixed with imagination.

Examples of Outcomes

Lady Operator

e first group of students was tackling the problem

of information overload in the modern society. e

participants constructed a super-hero called Lady

Operator who helps the individual who is drowningin information to refine the selection and select the

one right for their purpose. She possesses a special

machine that regulates the available information.

When her phone rings calling her to duty, she flies

directly to the customer and selectively refines the

chaotic information.

Mr. Cutter

Mr. Cutter is a game-show host. He is half-Japanese

and half-Russian and lives on the coast of Spain.

His family was in the shark business so he became

an activist and started a game show in which he

educates and communicates the need for the diversity


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of fish and the the importance of the species in the

ecosystem.e game show is constructed in three

parts. In the first part a contestant answers fishy

questions and winsfi

sh-free cooking lessons, dinnersand money.e second part is the documentary side

in which the beauty of fish are shown through fashion,

art and nature documentaries. e last part includes

surprise fishing trips, where his team surprises

random people, takes them fishing and shows them

how to cook.

Mr. Fix

Tower block approaches can result in social

deprivation and harm. is is why the team argues

that being proud of the area in which you live and

taking ownership can help to build community. Asdesigners, they appreciate values like aesthetics and

quality work, the use of natural, eco-friendly materials,

etc. and how these factors influence people who live in

the blocks and show them new perspectives on living.

Whenever there is a problem like graffiti, broken

windows or doors they have a psychic community cat

with a paint brush tail so she comes along, does some


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Most o us read newspaper articles and nod

our heads when we come across the news about

catastrophes that surround us stories about climate

change, new technological conrontations, landexploitation, political injustices Afer the mornings

lessons we most likely store the paper on a shel and in

three days we throw it away, probably in the recycling

bin, eeling that we have done something good or

humanity. What i we were to try to do something

different or a change in trying to understand theissues not as acts that politicians will have to handle

and resolve but as shared concerns that call or an

action on the part o each and every one o us? What

i we were to create a playul space or a gathering-

around o things o shared concern? Invite some

riends, design a scenario, gather, dream and play. Tisgame is a game o imagination, ethics, play and serious

matters.


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Te Rules of the Game

- Te play is set up in 20 years orm now.

- Te process unolds in 6 stages.- Te rules serve as suggestive guidelines. Tey are

open or participants to make alterations. You can play

with the tempo and with issues, contexts and values.

- o build a scene and characters, use materials that

you have at hand.

- ape the gatherings, i possible.

Stages

- What is important to you? Individually choose 3

values that drive you as a practitioner.

- Create a group o 3-5 participants. Pick theme that

represents the issue o a global or local concern in thenewspaper, the book, V wherever.

- Discuss about the shared issue o concern. Frame it.

- Gather the individual values and choose ones you

would like to work with. Create a maniest that will

represent your members.

- Work on a scenario or solving the issue, ollowing

your maniesto. Envision the set. Use things that

surround you, make costumes, props and backdrops

that will support your perormance.

- Perorm a scenario and discuss by reflecting.


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In Conversation

with Designers:What Does it Mean

to Work as a Design

Practitioner Today?

During your working practice did you eel that you

needed to question the ways o doing design? Why?Because it wasnt about the best solution, but a solution

in that time. A solution according to what the client

requested, but not what he would have needed.1

1 Bickert, S., [email protected],

2005. Designer in ransition. [e-mail]

Message to G. Meznaric Osole. ([email protected]). Sent Friday, 16

August, 19:28.


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9) I think to be a good designer, you need

to know something about everything and

than a lot about something very specifc.Like Indian goddess Durga that has many

hands which I chose as my image.4


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3

Educational institutions around the world

started to rame programs or re-orientation o

design practitioners teaching them creative methods

and processes, critical thinking and inorming themaround environmental and social concerns, providing

them with tools and knowledge to become responsive

and conscious change-driven creatives. Yet the

working environment is not offering enough jobs to

support these kinds o positions.

In order to understand the problematics o ways o

working within the design practice, I have engaged

MA design students to talk about their working

experience and aspirations or the uture. Te

analysis is based on a questionnaire that was sent

out in July 2013 and was responded to by six designpractitioners who are or were studying or a Masters

degree in design and who are inclined to push their

practice to embrace social, environmental or critical

perspectives.2

2Xi Yang, an artist and graphic design practitioner and MA

Design Futures student at Goldsmiths College; Eloisa Artuso, a

ashion designer and MA Design Futures student at Goldsmiths

College; Elena Busheva, a graphic designer and MA Critical

Practice student at Goldsmiths College; Christina Papazoglou,

an interior designer and MA Design and Environment student

at Goldsmiths College;Mina Arko, a graphic and interaction

designer and ormer MA student at Aalto University in

Helsinki; Svenja Bickert, a design thinker and ormer MA

student o Design Futures at Goldsmiths College.


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In the passage below, I will analyse responses o

these design practitioners, present their working

problematics and point towards directions new

generations o educated designers are inclined toollow. Te given answers urther inormed my

considerations on approaches design practitioners

could undertake in order to ollow their socially-

and environmentally-engaged design outcomes.

Tis section represents a critical overview based

on conversations with MA design students abouttheir working experiences, values, aspirations,

changing perspectives and roles as designers and my

personal observations as a design practitioner and

MA student. In order to understand and implement

transormative roles o design, working towards social

and environmental well-being, I find it important toexplore, i and how ideals and concepts that are coined

within (concept or skill-driven) educational systems

have the chance to live in the world o actual practice.

Introduction

Design is taught to be a top-down practice,conceptualised to impose the master planning value-


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while erasing the value o a collaborative approach

towards the process o creation. Te gap between

top-down planning and bottom-up ways o thinking

puts designers and clients into situations o arguingor endless compromises. As one o the practitioners

claims: In working practice I was quite happy with

bries and tasks , but always elt that a designer needs to

educate clients to whom s/he is making a piece o design,

people who will sign it. In 95% o cases you dont have

that opportunity, what actually limits the final resultin 10x times.3From the perspectives o designers,

clients are woeully undereducated about the broad

possibilities design can offer so they are unable to

think outside the narrow view o material products

and preerred styles. I believe that the conflict emerges

due to different perceptions concerning aestheticstandards, value systems and knowledge types.

When clients want to fit the design project into the

ramework o profitability the need to ollow the

trends becomes more important than the need to

improve the situation in terms o the given context.

In these cases, the value o making a profit normally

overlaps the wish to produce creative and innovative

3 Elena, B., [email protected], 2013.

Designer in ransition. [e-mail] Message

to G. Meznaric Osole. ([email protected]). Sent Friday, 2 August, 13:14.


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design outputs that are perceived as such through

the purview o established creative communities.

Designers also complain, whether working in a

commercial or non-commercial sphere, about theamount o time practitioners are given to solve the

task, which is usually insufficient to allow deep

research around the topic; thereore, the solutions are

unable to meet a transormative criterion. Working

under such conditions, designers become alienated

rom their own creative skills, which disempowerthem as practitioners. Many educated designers today

dont agree with the politics o profit-led practice

since it doesnt meet their own ethical and/or creative

values.

Working in a Corporate CompanyWhen designers choose to find their first working

experiences and incomes in larger companies or

advertising agencies they become accustomed to

ollowing orders as technically skilled practitioners.

Teir input doesnt raise the value o the work in

accordance with their intellectual contribution and

doesnt carry any responsibility besides the one


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8

that s/he has to accomplish as a wage employee.

Te hierarchical structure o the company creates

power relations between the workers; thereore the

outcomes normally dont include the knowledgesand sensitivities o all players in the process o the

creation. Projects are normally directed towards

meeting the needs o the most powerul. Many times

the compromises dont result in generating any

improvement since the research is based on targeting

the market in order to make profit. Tis requirementorce practitioners to become wage-labour workers

beyond the classic Fordist paradigm. In the times o

the actory the relations between practitioners were

appropriated to manual practices but ree in terms

o relating to each other. According to a practitioner

agencies hire you or your skills and are mainlyconcerned with how well you can use the programs and

how well will you fit in their environment. Ofen you are

not encouraged to think but instead to make.4

oday, i a designer wishes to find employment in a

modern actory, s/he has to posses required skills

that are not only connected with knowing how to use

4 Arko, M., [email protected],



August, 15:28.


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specific computer sofware programs but also have

to conorm with extra requirements such as social

intelligence and an attractive personality that fits well

with the agencies aspirations. Tey have to acceptthe code o corporate behaviour. In this manner the

company modifies relationships between workers

as well as orcing them to accept their ethical values

thereby commercialising previously untouchable

spheres o workers reedom. I the ethical codes used

to be directed only towards the companies customers,now they come in as well in terms o re-designing

relations among workers.

Working as a Freelancer

As I have observed, the majority o educated designers

today choose to seek or work in project-led studiosor work on their own creative projects. In becoming

sel-employees or reelancers, they are able to ollow

the path towards sel-actualisation. As one o design

practitioners claims: Working as a reelancer gives me

more reedom in communication with the client which

(in my opinion) results in a better product. I eel more

ree in developing my ideas. With reelancing you are


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taking on more responsibility and need to always push

yoursel which is a good motivation to make better

work.4In accordance with contemporary neo-liberal

ideals, we mostly build our personalities throughour working practice. Tis questions the ethics o

reelance work since creative practitioners today not

only have to seek or the wage-labour to provide them

with financial security but also or the specific work

that would allow them to build their personalities,

grow, learn, be ethical and give them enough creativereedom. Freelance designers are thereore put into

a position in which they have to construct a viable

identity and develop good communication skills,

since the career success usually depends on the flow o

persuasive communication. I practitioners learn how

to negotiate well, more flexible and dynamic workingpractices give them good opportunities to explore a

variety o project-based working experiences.

I consider that a good job is usually associated with

a position in which designers earn money or using

proessional skills through the process o ideation,

which gives them more reedom to develop their own

4 Arko, M., [email protected],



August, 15:28.


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ideas. Since demands or design practice are gradually

turning towards immaterial labour, designers need

to develop competencies such as communication,

mediation, management, writing and orecasting skills.From my observations, there is an increased interest

in nonspecialised and more conceptual designers in

terms o design thinking. As one o the interviewed

practitioners mentioned, social innovation companies

and public institutions are increasingly searching or

practitioners who know how to sketch, prototype,write, present and think creatively; such skills are

rapidly becoming as valuable as practical, technical

skills. I have observed that a belie in learning through

working and pushing onesel to overcome boundaries

resides quite strongly in the perception o many

contemporary creative practitioners. Tey have toconstantly ollow up on new technologies, trends and

clients desires, without having the chance to question

and envision their own values or projections or our

common the uture.


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Working through Research

What are the most significant characteristics

between your working practice until now and your

preerred one in terms o a) skills, b) ways to work, c)products? a) less actual work in design programs, b)

deep research on the problem, using different creative

methods. c) concept is a product. Producing immaterial

which will be materialised by others and will influence

material finally.5

Reading through the answers I have noticed an

increased desire this came rom the voices o

more than hal o the interviewed design students,

including mysel to become diverse change-driven

workers, using creative methodologies, ethnographic

approaches, collaborative engagement, cross-disciplinary work, field work, practical skills, all in a

wish to be a part o situated and exploratory research-

driven practice that is directed towards improving

the uture o living. Designers have become interested

in understanding the contexts o situations and

working towards designing social and environmental

5 Elena, B., [email protected], 2013.

Designer in ransition. [e-mail] Message

to G. Meznaric Osole. ([email protected]). Sent Friday, 2 August, 13:14.


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improvements, that take orm in a diverse range

o outcomes (things, spaces, texts, concepts or

discussions), combining theory and practice

towards pursuing their path o curiosity and criticalengagement.

Conclusion

I the link between the educational environment

and practice will not be activated to the extent that

practitioners will have a chance to work, this newgeneration o designers with valuable knowledge will

not have a possibility to implement answers to the

problems we are acing at the moment.

Could designers be the ones to imagine new ways

o living through introducing models and conceptso working practice, liberated rom satisying the

needs o the market and understanding o work as

a necessity or surviving? Revamping the struggle

o commercially driven desires and hegemonic

directives rom the market as well as the concept o

working or living, would release the tight connection

between work, security, identity and survival and


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could possibly lead design into a practice, where

these transormational aspirations, based on research

through design practice, would have a chance to live

without wage-labour oppression.


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What would design practitioners find valuable when repositioning theirpractice? In the next passages I will explore possible ways of re-thinking our

approach towards the concept of work and towards ourselves in the context of

contemporary design practice.

First I will touch on new working forms that are defined by the concept of creative

industries and explain why this approach might not bring optimally beneficial

solutions in terms of environmental and social stability. Further on I will touch the

phenomena of creative communities that emerged around the financial crisis and

explore new models of collective working that are not so strongly connected to the

accumulation of profit and growth. ouching upon such communities and in this

connection my exploration is mainly limited to the territory of Slovenia, I would

like to open a discussion around the unlocked potentials of such formations.

Te second part of the section analyses the accumulation of profit through neo-liberal modes of working that demand from creative workers that success be built

through a process of self-actualisation and explain why, I believe, such an approach

cannot lead to the desired social and environmental transformations. I will support

the discussion with theoretical discourses, introduced by femininst philosopher

Rossi Bradiottis thoughts that present contemporary ethics through post-identities

and nomadic subjects. In thinking through these subjects in the context of

becoming liberated from the idea of the autonomy or dependence, I will explore

approaches towards collective responsibility in sense of human interdependence,taking cognisance of another feminist theoretician, Jean ronto, and her

approach to the ethics of care (1993). In this world of unequal power relations

and competition in the name of profit accumulation, I find her suggestions

valuable as normatives for developing an understanding of some necessary ethical

considerations to the transformation of roles in design practice.

o think this through, I will use one of the suggested examples of three types of

possible transformations (Baladrn, Havrnek, 2010). Bauhaus, for example, was

following the first type of transformative process in a wish to build a new world

through paths of construction. On the other hand, the Slovenian nation went

through a transformational process involving colonisation / assimilation according

to neo-liberal rules. Neither one nor the other path of transformation happened

to be beneficial in either of the cases.Te third type the one that interests me

the most is the approach based on experience, that is to say, nature. Aiming to

provided suggestions for further consideration, the foregoing will be focused on the

ground perspective of this position.


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A Transformative

Approach to Work:From Creative Industries

to Creative Communities


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2

A conversation I had with my riend andcolleague Nina afer she returned to Ljubljana aferfinishing her masters design course in London has

stayed in my memory. She was studying productdesign; her main concerns during her studieswere centred around thinking about systems andenvironments that would enhance social engagementand acilitate the exchange o already availableresources. In this conversation we were discussing

whether to continue with the group or go our separateways due to the requently voluntary / unpaid natureo the work we were undertaking, arguments withclients, etc. o the question o what next? that isconstantly haunting our minds, she replied: Oh,Gaja, you are so lucky! You have gained a super-

specialised knowledge [I have a diploma in visualcommunication], so you will be ok. I eel like I dontknow how to do anything. Everything and anything atthe same time! She continued: My mother once toldme that Jewish people have always had two proessions one or the times o wealth and one or the times

o crisis. At the moment, she is painting portraits opeople she meets.


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3

Recent research on unemployment rates (Eurostat,

2013) estimates that 26.654 million men and women

in the EU-28 [], were unemployed in July 2013.

Compared with July 2012, unemployment rose by995,000 in the EU-28 and by 1,008,000 in the eurozone.

[] Te EU-28 unemployment rate was 11.0 % in July

2013 [], it was 10.5 % in July 2012. Compared with a

year ago, the unemployment rate increased in seventeen

member states and fell in eleven. Te highest increases

were registered in Cyprus (12.2% to 17.3%), Greece(23.8% to 27.6%), Slovenia (9.3% to 11.2%) and the

Netherlands (5.3% to 7.0%).

In thinking about new models that reject the oldlabour divisions o work and leisure, the European

Commission recognises solutions in creativeindustries that are working towards unlockingthe potential o the creative industries in buildingeconomic wealth. In order to provide new workingopportunities, it acts to empower creative practitionersto discover new synergies with modes o industrial

production. But to look at the financial crisis throughthe lens o economic stabilisation, we may not be


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attempting to solve the problems rom the mostproductive perspective.

In this new digital economy, immaterial valueincreasingly determines material value, as consumers

search for novel and enriching experiences. Te

ability to create social experiences and networking

is now an important factor in competitiveness. If

Europe wants to remain competitive in this changing

global environment, it needs to put in place the rightconditions for creativity and innovation to flourish in a

new entrepreneurial culture1.

Tis neo-liberal orm o governmentality is highlyconsumer orientated and primarily ocused on making

improvements in terms o market optimisationrather than striving towards social cohesion andenvironmental protection. Creative industries areusually maniested in the orm o micro-enterprises,which are flexible, small, temporal and project-based practices. Since they do not provide stable

working conditions they orce creative practitionersinto a constant state o insecurity, competitiveness

1 Green Paper, Unlocking the potential o cultural and

creative industries (2010) [Online], Available at: http://

ec.europa.eu/culture/our-policy-development/doc/GreenPaper_creative_industries_en.pd, [6. August 2013].


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and consequently develop an attitude that could beunderstood as a orm o sel-precarisation, involvinga creative and productive relationship to the sel.

On top o that, what can be problematised in theseinstitutional structures is the restructuring o relationsbetween creatives in terms o processes o acceleration,

valorisation and optimisation (Von Osten 2011: 42).Tis establishes the ground or the creation o workingconditions that orce the practitioners to float rom

project to project or build one micro-enterprise aferanother. Once again, work production and insecuritybecome part o the way o lie.

According to Gerald Raunig [] flexibility [as a

normative within the working sturcture of creative

industries] becomes a despotic norm, precarity of workbecomes the rule, the dividing lines between work and

leisure time blur just like those between work and

unemployment, and precarity flows from work into life

as a whole (2011: 199).

Let us say that there is a chance that creative industriesmight help to solve the problem o unemployment


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6

in providing new working opportunities orcultural entrepreneurs. But it seems or now thatan obsolescent instrumentalising logic continues

to ignore a basic problem: one can hardly hope toaddress issues like social instability, acceleratedliestyles, physical bodies and attitudes to nature indesigning such alienated and precarious workingconditions

Capitalism is an economic system, in which profitand the accumulation o capital can only be sustainedthrough constant growth. Tis means that the marketsystem can survive only i it prepares the ground orsuch growth in real value, regardless o the social,political, geopolitical or ecological consequences.

Deriving rom that, an economic crisis is defined interms o a lack o profit growth (Harvey, 1990)? Butwhen will it be possible to understand that puttinga growing economy at the top o our priority listwont help us save the ongoing social and ecologicalproblems?


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By now the majority o Western world had becomeoverloaded with consumer goods. Most o thingswe produce in this world are conceptualised in the

design stage o the process, whether we are talkingabout the products, inrastructures or services thatsurround us (Design Council, 2002). Te urban worldis over-built and the accessibility o things is moreintimately linked to the distribution o resourcesthan to production processes. How can design create

ethical aesthetics around this concerns and by doingso inorm its own practice as well as the public? Ocourse this broadens the scope by adding a whole newway o looking at the politics o design practice thatsearches or the questions and answers directly romour selves, our ways o living, working and relating

with the environment and each other.

Te World Commission on Environment andDevelopment (WCED) in 1987 was responding toa contemporary global concern o deterioration othe human environment and natural resources. Te

outcome o the commission was the Brundtlandreport, which coined the term sustainability and


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invited all countries to work together towardssustainable development.

Conceptualising sustainability through the perspectiveo resource management allows technocratic policyapproaches. Cross-disciplinary biologist AndreasWeber claims that these only intensiy dualist culture-nature tensions by trying to increase technologicalefficiency and the objectification o nature (2013). In

that manner, treating the condition o a living systemas a statical construct o matters-o-act, would notallow us to meet the desired changes. Tat kind otreatment allowed the concept o sustainability to beexpressed through many maniestations that actuallyexacerbated the problems instead o solving them.

Ideas like the green economy are still conceived interms o a gap between culture and nature, the samegap that alienated us rom the complex environmentwe live in right at the birth o Western philosophy.

In this sense it is important to look at new

technologies that we develop not only rom thepoint o view o what is gained but also to enter into

2 I was led into this kind o thinking through a development

o a conversation I had with the Emeritus Proessor o Design

at Goldsmiths University o London, proessor John Wood.


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a dialogue that reflects also on what we lose2. Whatbaby has been flushed away with the technologicalbathwater o contemporary finance?

What needs to be acknowledged is that any economicactivity at its base is not just an exchange o objectsand money but rather a rich set o ongoing flows andrelationships (Weber, 2013). And these relationshipsprovide us a sense o belonging and commitment,

generating eelings and meanings. Money does notdo that. Economical exchange disconnects agentsrom resources, making them seem independentwhile suppressing the act that they are reallyinterdependent. In so doing, it compresses the valueo meaning. I we continue to lose ourselves in the

contemporary ideology o working or a living, weare enramed in actions that detaches us rom andprevents us rom communicating with our humanand non-human environments in a balanced and non-abusive way.

According to the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj iek,the problems that we are acing are the problems o


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the commons o nature, which cannot be resolvedthrough market mechanisms, it needs a kind o aglobally coordinated activity beyond nation state,

beyond market (2011). Global initiatives, in myopinion, could be more resilient in terms o ramingsmaller micro-political initiatives that take the ormo creative communities that recognise the localproblematics o specific areas and are connectedand empowered through their raming o translocal

networks. Isnt it that inventing new global modelsin the orm o representative guidelines would bringonly a mimetic relation to the given reality, attachingholistic models to specific localities, which were inhistorically speaking mostly unsuccessul?

Te financial crisis that started to spread aroundEurope rom 2007 onward resulted in a lot youngcreative practitioners finding themselves in theposition o having to find new ways o organisationaland working models, raming diverse collectivelyorganised urban practices. Te reason or the

emergence o the groups was mostly the increasedamount o ree time among the unemployed, the


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majority o them being highly educated practitioners.o illustrate, the unemployment rate among the youthin Slovenia is 23% and rising (SA, 2013) (in line with

Italy which has reached 11%, Spain 56.1%, and Greeceat the highest with 62.9% (Burgen, 2013)). Architects,ollowed by design practitioners, were one o thegroups o educated creatives most exposed by the lacko job positions.

Te lack o working opportunities led practitionersinto a position rom which they started to engagewithin different kinds o non-designerly practices(in this case the term reers to practices that need adifferent type, mainly sel-organised, involving bothcollective and individual engagement) and to step out

o their roles as specific experts and assume previouslyunthinkable roles out o their area o expertise.

o talk about Slovenia specifically, I think it isimportant to observe that the collective spirit ocontemporaneity is being influenced by temporal as

well as spatial contexts. It emerged rom a sense onecessity that was caused by the Western neo-liberal


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politics into which we gradually transited, throughwhich process o transition many ostensibly healthylocal enterprises were allowed to wither and the local

economy destroyed. Restrictive market policies, anunequal split o the privatised property, increasedood prices and reduced standards o healthcareand education were also experienced. But a positiveaspect o the crisis was maniested in a revivedsense o nostalgia or socialism and a new interest in

researching the times o socialistic modernity.

Craf making, cooking, gardening, DIY (do-it-yoursel), creating new, shared, spaces interlacedwith the appreciation o local and natural resources,reuse, sharing and low-budget solutions, are the most

requent. As I have observed, the collectives emergedrom both interdisciplinary and intradisciplinarygroups, based on a shared concern or practical skill.Tey unction as transitional bubbles and a socialexperiment that by circumstantial necessity transgressthe boundaries o the exploiting logic o cognitive

capitalism. Trough their embodied practice theyseem to question our needs and ways o living rom


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10) Culinary Collective Trapez3

(2013), Ljubljana.


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the point o view o our social and material bodies.What do we really need in order to survive? How canwe work it out together?

Trough their practice the collectives give orm tocollectivised values: they revive appreciations otraditional practices like stamping, bookbinding,silk-screening, sewing; they give lie to public spaces,organising happenings and workshops. Practices

that are not directed through the neo-liberal marketthereore provide or unlock new potentialities o urbanexistence3.

3 Just to name ew o the examples: creative collectives

like rapez, a group o designers, economists, architects

and lawyers, which is a newly-emerged community that

is in the process o setting up their transitional practice in

(street) cooking. | Muslau, which is a collective o creatives

who are connected with the love or bicycles and cycling,

organising cycling events around the country, repairing and

designing parts or the bicycles, organising happenings and

experimenting with technological possibilities around bicycle

mechanics. | Smet-Umet, a creative collective o architectural

and textile students who are raming their practice around

research on reuse o domestic waste, creating discussions,

workshops and production lines based on their findings. |

Home-made in Moste is a couple o students o architecture

who are raming their practice around learning through

perorming a renovation o their old ruined house, engaging

with craf and DIY practices, connected mostly withdesigning urniture and clothes, exploring various traditional

techniques and methods.


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I believe that it is important to consider and reviveinherited values and local knowledges o social

cohesion in the present-day context o economichardship and labour crisis, when ideas o socialengagement are coming back into relevant discussions,ofen in the orm o the new ethics rom the West.Examples like community gardens, which are beingset as new initiatives just ten years afer they were

obliterated to make new parking spaces; the openingo swap-shops; second-hand markets; co-working.Although such iniciatives are very welcome, yetcould more contextual and politically engaged spacialpractices avoid ollowing the patterns rom the Westin a orm o temporary trendsetters? Tis would also

allow practitioners to think about the pracitces thatare still missing in such ormations, such as creatingstronger links between older and younger generations,urban and rural practises, other disadvantaged groups,in order to rame more inclusive environments.

Relating to creative practices I am posing the questionas to whether is it possible or such communities to


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avoid the the cycle o development that is comingin through supporting sel-actualisation throughentrepreneurship and thus have a chance to survive,

grow, challenge such dystopian working conditions?Why I believe that it would be important to unlocktheir potential is that these ormations, so stronglyinterwoven within the present, are the ones that arere-inventing the uture through the taking o small butgrounded steps. Jean Baudrillard gave an alternative,

downbeat definition o utopia: utopia, he wrote,is what is never spoken, never on the agenda, butalways repressed in the identity o political, historical,logical, dialectical orders. Utopia is what the ordero the day is missing Something elusive that dieswhen aggressive interpretation sets in (Baudrillard in

Larsen, 2013).

So how could we encourage more critical reflection,questioning around collaborative creativecommunities, recognising them as valuable aspotential experiments or ways o working in the

uture. Opening up orums or discussions, mergingtheoretical and practical discourses could encourage


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creatives to think o actions that would increase thepotential or critical engagement. What would happeni designers connect with sociologists, culturologists

and philosophers as well as local communities? Here ahidden potential still remains to be unlocked.


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11) Cycling collective Muslauf3

(2012) Ljubljana.


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Transformative Approach

to the Self From anIndividual to a Collective

I am a designer in General and in General a designer.I give the world a beauty of useful things [] I am with

you in search for liberty and harmony between artistic

and natural Beauty. For De Lucchi, the conventional

Designer in Generale, who shouts, commands, forces,

decides, was too imposing a figure, emblematic of a

profession steeped in authoritarian elitism. InsteadDe Lucchi proposed a different figure - one more

collaborative than combative in his approach to

architecture and inhabitants.1

1 Rossi, C. and Coles, A. (2013) EP/Volume 1: Te Italian

Avant-Garde, 1968-1976. Berlin: Sternberg Press, pp. 53.


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2

Te introduction o the neo-liberal economic

system, which operates according to the principle o

accumulation o profit, resulted in physical and mental

detachment rom our ecosystems. Since economicalstructures are the main reflection o contemporary

power systems, we are building up a society in which

we are alienated rom each other and are losing the

sense to recognise the needs, opportunities and

possibilities or exchange and potential synergies

hidden outside the purview o profitability. Teancient notion o taking care o yoursel, knowing

yoursel in order to understand how to act ethically in

a democratic society, has transormed rom a healthy

morality o knowing about your limits to a society o

competitive sel-orientated individuals in a pursuit

towards sel-actualisation (Foucault, 1997).

Focusing only on the concept o autonomous and

ree identities does not resonate with the common

responsibility or the collectively shared world we

inhabit. Neo-liberal logic, which assimilated living

to working, creates the unbalanced situations we

are acing today, through supporting environments


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in which wage-based working conditions demand

competitive actors in a pursuit o profit as a living

necessity. In this mode, the social abric will never

meet environmental demands because o the way thatnatural resources serve as viable resources or meeting

the desires o privileged individuals.

Creative liestyles, which used to present viable

alternatives in the post-ordist societies, are becoming

increasingly economically utilisable models orthe labour market demands o today. Appreciation

o flexibility, subjectivity, reedom, emancipation,

creativity and temporality are well suited to the

viral logic o the ree market. Creatives add value

to contemporary cities and liestyles by generating

creative models o living and producing which canbe turned to the purposes o commodification and

profit. I only Baudelaire knew, when he wrote his

maniestoTe Painter of Modern Life, that his artistic

liestyle would grow into a role model or the neo-

liberal individual! Designers, caught in between poetic

and pragmatic practice, can thereore be represented

as embodiment o contemporary productive existence


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the truth lies in dreams of many: reflections of a design student on changing roles in design...

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