Chiba University, Chiba, JAPAN
1 to 3 July 2019
Does Design Care…? is a workshop/seminar for academics and practitioners from various disciplines at any level of experience who are involved and/or interested in the gesture and/or practice of “Care” at large.
In the autumn of 2017, the first Does Design Care…? workshop took place at Imagination, Lancaster University, UK. Agroup of 28 researchers and practitioners from 16 nations across 5 continents discussed, acted and reflected upon “Care”. These activities led to the collaborative essay – The Lancaster Care Charter, published recently in Design Issues, which was written in response to the vital question “Does Design Care…?”
Via a series of conversations, stimulated by a range of presentations that explored a range of provocations, insights and more questions, the group provided answers for the contemporary context of Care, “The Lancaster Care Charter” presents a collective vision and sets out new pragmatic encounters for the design of Care and the care of Design.
Following on from this hugely successful international Does Design Care…? workshop, we wish to extend the conversations, presentations, insights, more questions and are now ready for the second act of our long and difficult journey towards a better understanding and future visions of what Care is and could be.
DDC[2] Workshop Participants’ Bios
Dr Sébastien Proulx is Associate Professor of Design at The Ohio State University and codirector of the Ohio State DESIS LAB. He holds a PhD in Design from the Université de Montréal. His research program revolves around the role of designers in the development of public services. His approach draws on moral sociology and care ethics to develop an appropriate conceptual framework to provide designers with ways to cope with the complexity of contemporary social and political realities. His research goals are about understanding designers’ role in the sociopolitical realm, expending the horizon of design activities in the development of public services, and the training of designers capable of assuming the responsibilities associated to such a stance.
Dr Delfina Fantini van Ditmar holds a BA in Biology. Delfina completed her PhD at the Royal College of Art with a thesis entitled The IdIoT. Her research focuses on questioning and critically analysing the embedded epistemology of Internet of Things (IoT) in the context of the ‘SMARTNESS’. Her research unpacks the tensions between algorithms and socio-spatial structures. By problematising the ambiguities of ‘smart’ technology, her work examines the issues surrounding algorithmic logic exposing the numerical reductionism at the core of ‘smartness’.Delfina is a tutor and researcher in Design Products and a Visiting Lecturer at the Royal College of Art’s MRes Design programme. Delfina also participates in the Design School’s transdisciplinary modules, like the Grand Challenge, which this year was a collaboration between the Royal College of Art and CERN. In her teaching practice, Delfina encourages students to reflect on their design process, think systemically, and critically analyse the broader implications of their decisions.
Emilene Zitkus is an early career scholar whose research in Inclusive Design has been awarded few times. After her PhD at the University of Cambridge, she has lectured to large groups of undergraduates, as well as delivered, several invited lectures to Master and PhD students. In her current lecturer position, at University of Huddersfield, her expertise in inclusive design, user experience and user-centred has been the focus of her research in Healthcare Services and Products. She has experience in research management and development, as well as industrial experience in the automotive industry and automated technology industry, which generated some design patents.
Sally Sutherland is a Doctoral Candidate and Lecturer at the University of Brighton in the School of Architecture and Design. She has an MA in Sustainable Design and has spent 15 years working in Lighting Design and Product development in the UK and Australia. Sally’s work aims to create meaningful dialogue using critical thinking and designed artefacts. Her research interests include Sustainable Food Futures; Posthuman and Feminist perspectives in design; How design can positively impact health inequalities; The impact of design on everyday life, behaviours, norms, practices and belief systems. Sally’s exploratory work focuses on food, culture, light, and mothering.
Penny Hilton lives in London where her varied career has spanned film, tv production, advertising and graphic design. As a documentary filmmaker she tackles complex issues with creativity and currently focuses on projects around mental health and well-being.This professional practice informs her academic career, she holds a senior lecturer post at London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, where she teaches all modes of digital experience involving moving image and motion design. Her first book Design In Motion is published by Bloomsbury this October. She is often seen on a bicycle and loves cold water swimming.
I’m Tot Foster from Bristol, UK. I’m currently writing up my PhD at the Open University after a career in film production; for UK television, HE, and charities. My educational background is chequered; Social Anthropology, Ceramics, and Documentary Direction. I believe that everyone with a smartphone, and a little confidence and knowledge, can make films. I also believe that DIY films can be intimate, powerful and persuasive. So my research focuses on using Design to empower small charities to produce films themselves to communicate their impact, to involve clients and volunteers, and to explore their creativity.
Omayma Alqatawneh is a PhD researcher in the School of Art, Design, and Architecture, at the University of Huddersfield, United Kingdom. Omayma’s present research interest is in the area of Design Fiction (DF), as it’s premised on exploring alternative worlds to speculate on the future by using a combination of fiction and prototyping. By employing DF techniques, Omayma intends to enhance the adoption of Self-Driving Cars through the in-car user interface, and the timeslot factor for the potential user, as it presents the kind of activities they could fulfil while the car is driving itself. Further to this, Omayma is interested in 3D modelling, Computer Animations, Visual Effects and interaction design.
Sarah Morton is a design engineer and ethnographer based at the Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences, University of Edinburgh. Her research covers a broad range of interests related to improving outcomes post-stroke including, reducing sedentary behaviour, pain management, end of life care, and digital immersive greenspaces for therapeutic benefit. She utilises co-design approaches and believes that involving multiple end-users is critical for generating successful outputs with higher long-term uptake rates. In her spare time, Sarah enjoys spending time in the mountains – running ultra-marathons, cycling, skiing, and volunteering with the Pentland Hills Ranger Service.
Dr Carolina Ramirez-Figueroa is a designer and architect born and bred in Mexico City and now based in London. I have been working in the intersection of design, architecture and living systems for 7 years and firmly believe in design as an activity that transcends discipline boundaries. A core element of my practice is collaboration. I have collaborated with artists and designers and worked with scientists spending extensive time doing hands-on experiments in microbiology. My work nowadays operates on two fronts: an exploration of the way that living systems challenge and transform the discipline of design; and the development of new biomaterials and technologies.
Associate Professor Evonne Miller is Director of the QUT Design Lab in the School of Design at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. Her expertise is in environmental and design psychology, focused on designing environments (built, technical, socio-cultural and natural) that better engage and support all users, especially older people in residential aged care. Evonne uses the creative arts methodologies of photovoice and research poetry to powerfully explore, portray, and improve the lived experiences of ageing (the Inside Aged Care project – https://insideagedcareproject.wordpress.com) and caring (the Co-Designing Care project used participatory methods to co-design an app, with and for carers).
Cara O’Sullivan is a PhD researcher at the University of Liverpool, exploring the future of paediatric inclusive mobility design in collaboration with Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, supported by The Hugh Greenwood Legacy for Children’s Health Research. Cara’s specialisation in inclusive mobility design has led her around the world developing life-changing products such as low-cost evolvable walking aids in Peru, all-terrain Safari Seats in Kenya, and intelligent paediatric power chairs in the UK.
Yutaka Yoshinaka is Associate Professor at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), with an M.Sc.(Eng.) and Ph.D. from the Technical University in science and technology studies (STS). Recent research deals with new conceptions towards addressing design synthesis in engineering, and innovation more broadly. Socio-material design and generative design interventions form the fulcrum of research inquiry, as relates particularly to the so-called ‘front-end’, early stages of design, involving users (co-design) and other actors of potential relevance (co-creation). Design-in-use and domestication of technologies in a multi-actor orientation frame the empirical focus in areas such as health and technology, patient safety, and ageing.
I am Hui Tse GAN. I have lived in Singapore, Malaysia and China. As a design researcher, I’ve worked with design consultancies, and large corporations like ASUS and Alibaba, on hardware, user experience and service design. Moving forward, I am keen on exploring social innovation, having been involved in designing a nursing home for person-centric care, and helped a childcare centre review their processes. As a traveler, I visit places and communities with the lens of an ethnographer, often couchsurfing and volunteering. I now hope to enrich people’s travel experiences by bringing a perspective that is not found in travel guides.
Lilo Viehweg is a design researcher, lecturer and curator. In her works she investigates cultural knowledge and social processes between humans and non-humans. Since her studies at the University of the Arts Berlin, where she graduated in 2013, she has been active in various cultural fields. As a research associate at the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation from 2016 to 2018, she investigated material knowledge through collaborative processes. She teaches design methods between theory and practice at various art and design schools in Germany and Switzerland, curates exhibitions and designs participative tools.
Ida Telalbasic (PH.D., FHEA) is a Lecturer at the Institute for Design Innovation, Loughborough University London and Programme Director for Entrepreneurial Design Management. She contributes to research, teaching and enterprise activities in the area of Service Design Innovation and Strategy. Her current research focuses on the design of service ecosystems for entrepreneurship with a focus on acceleration and incubation activities. Ida’s enterprise activities include developing scaling-up methodologies for social enterprises (The Young Foundation, NESTA, Social Innovation Exchange), creating toolkits for building impact case studies (World Bank), mentoring start-ups (FFWD), and organizing Global Service Jams for both academia and industry.
Halima Lone is a Chemical Engineer turned Social Entrepreneur from the UK. She explores the intersection between Engineering Technology and Sustainability; starting with her industrial experience optimising operations at 3M, Material Research Engineering at Jaguar Land Rover and recently her entrepreneurial experience co-founding Digital Health Technology start-up, Screen2Care. As part of this journey, Halima is seeking to explore how decentralised and preventative healthcare can be effectively embedded into multi-cultural societies through individual, organisational and national practices. Her research proposal for DDC [2] highlighted the need for Intelligence Augmentation in complex and culturally-sensitive care systems for both professional and voluntary carers globally.
Jessica Melville-Brown is a 1st year PhD student at the School of Architecture and Design, University of Brighton. My research explores the challenges & opportunities in the co-design process when engaging participants from varied socio-economic backgrounds in Participatory Design. My previous work experience developed collaborations with NGO’s, schools & universities, creating innovative workshop programs and product collections in the UK, Malawi and Nepal. Enamelling is a tool I use to engage participants to converse about difficult topics such as domestic violence, drug dependency, HIV prevention, contraception, relationships, & additionally empowering vulnerable adults and unemployed 18-25 year olds through therapeutic creative social enterprise programmes.
Irene Griffin – I am currently working on the ‘S4S Designing a Sensibility for Sustainable Clothing’ research project with the Department of Politics at the University of Exeter’s Environment and Sustainability Institute. I also deliver workshops in embroidery and natural dyes as well as talks on sustainable practice for Fashion & Textile Design at Falmouth University. Working as an educator, I have developed insights into transitional design journeys from linear to circular and firmly advocate the ‘re-design of design’ practice and education models across all sectors. “If you wear clothes, then you’re involved”.
Fangzhou Dong is a PhD candidate in Department of Industrial Design, University of Liverpool (UoL), based off-site at Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University (XJTLU). Her research aims to analyze the interaction of speculative design and Chinese wedding Culture through participatory design practices. Prior to her PhD study, she received MA in Design Informatics from the University of Edinburgh and BEng in Industrial Design from Dalian University of Technology in China.
David Coyles is a lecturer in architecture and chair of the Legacy Research Group at Ulster University. Since 2012, David has led Cartographies of Conflict research project, a multidisciplinary investigation bringing together researchers from architecture, planning, conflict-studies, history, social policy and photography, to examine the social, political, economic and material effects of conflict. David teaches architectural design and architectural theory, emphasising the crucial role that architectural design can play in creating everyday social spaces that promote a sense of community and which give support and sustenance to individual lives.
Margherita De Giorgi is currently a visiting researcher at the Graduate School of Management, Kyoto University, I have a background in the performing arts and I am trained in Biodynamic Cranio Sacral Therapy. I am also an aikido novice. In 2017, I obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Bologna and of Paris 8 (international co-tutorship). Inspired by existing projects using movement education to support social empowerment, I recently transitioned to organization studies to analyse community-building strategies in crafts and in somatic movement education in Kyoto. My goal is mapping effective solutions to support manual practices in response to the mainstream sustainability market.
Enza Migliore is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Tokyo Metropolitan University. Her investigation is about a critical perspective on Materials, exploring their impact on society and the relative public information through Design. She works with chemists to experiment on materials scenarios, meanings, opportunities and knowledge. Graduated in Product Design and PhD in Design for Innovation (Università Vanvitelli, Italy) her dissertation concerned an interdisciplinary approach where Design feeds Materials Science on human factors. Member of the editorial board of the academic journal diid she collaborates with the IPCB, Institute of Polymers, Composites, Biomaterials (Italian National Research Council) and with the Hybrid Design Lab of Naples.
Lisa Banu is a grief and loss counselor working towards licensing in clinical social work. Her area of practice is focused on loss of place, identity and connectivity in contexts of death and aging. She holds a doctorate in philosophy and is interested in existential psychotherapy and sensorimotor therapies. Utilizing her philosophy background combined with a professional degree in architecture, she taught design history at Purdue University. She is currently working with children and adolescents suffering from suicidal ideation, self-harm, anxiety, depression and anger. Her workshop proposal speaks to the existential resonance between the declining and the developing.
My name is Pranay Arun Kumar, and I am a PhD candidate at the Royal College of Art, London. I’m an Industrial Designer, born and raised in India. I graduated from the National Institute of Design in 2016, and have been designing medical devices and healthcare services and systems over the last 4 years in India. My research looks at design for sustainable healthcare, understanding the role of design in the creation of unregulated medical waste, and how designers can practice in responsible ways to produce less waste while making efficient healthcare systems.
Dr Stephanie Bunn is a Textile Anthropologist at the University of St Andrews. She conducts research into textiles, learning and creativity, including felt-making in Kyrgyzstan, basketry in Scotland and the relationship between hand-skills and cognition. She currently coordinates Woven Communities (www.wovencommunities.org), an AHRC-funded project focussed on memory, learning and recovery in Scottish basketry. Stephanie was UK representative for felt textiles on UNESCO Silk Road Programme. She collected and co-curated the first ever British Museum exhibition of Central Asian nomadic textiles. She is author of Nomadic Felt(2010, British Museum Press), editor of Anthropology and Beauty(2018, Routledge) and co-editor with Victoria Mitchell of The Material Culture of Basketry, shortly to be published by Bloomsbury.
Shruti Grover is a Human Centred Designer who has led the conception, research, design and delivery of products and services for King’s College London, Wellcome Trust, Médecins Sans Frontières, Stannah Stairlifts, Proteus Digital Health, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and the Seoul Design Foundation. These projects were co-designed with healthcare professionals, patient groups, and technologists in the United States, India, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Netherlands and the United Kingdom. I hold a MA/MSc (Dist) in Innovation Design Engineering from the Royal College of Art and Imperial College. I enjoy swimathons & Ashtanga yoga. In a previous life, I lead construction projects in India.
Henry Collingham is a doctoral researcher working in the School of Design at Northumbria University, in the CoCreate research group. My PhD research is focused on design for dementia, working in residential care homes in the North East of England. I’m a product designer and I work primarily with physical materials. My work focusses on promoting self-expression and autonomy through the designed environment.
Csilla Narai is a senior strategic designer, with a background in management, social sciences and service design. She loves working at the intersection of genuine innovation and empathic design, using her expertise in generative design research, facilitation of collaborative processes, digital transformations and product strategy. She is from Budapest, Hungary, working internationally. Besides design, she has been an advocate for social entrepreneurship since 2010, focusing on community building and impact strategy. She spoke about the topic at TEDxYouth, was the first Hungarian blogger to regularly address it and created many meetups, workshops and other networking events in Budapest.
Dr Justin Magee is a Senior Lecturer in Product Design and Research Director at the Belfast School of Art, Ulster University. He is qualified in Product design (1992), Transport design (1996) and has a PhD (3D digital modelling of spinal posture, 2010). His industry engagement (>75 projects) includes LEGO Systems, GE Plastics, axial3D and Izak9. He researches unmet needs in Healthcare and delivers Knowledge Exchange engagements, using UX methods, digital human modelling, immersive technology and physical product design. He is currently involved in KTP activity and the AHRC Creative Cluster, Future Screens NI. To escape, he practices several martial arts.
Dr Mark Bradford is a designer and academic at Massey University, College of Creative Arts, School of Design Nga Pae Māhutonga in Wellington, New Zealand. His interdisciplinary research investigates how design(ing) action is increasingly enacted relationally between people. Through his PhD research process, and inspired by the Japanese martial art of Aikidō, he designed the ‘BeWeDō® framework.’ BeWeDō is a unique way of enabling people to start, share, shape, and transform conversations – with movement (people utilise physical movement techniques and talk simultaneously to share perspectives and generate creative opportunities): no egos, no Post-its, no more bystanders. Mark always says “yes” to coffee!
Lizete Druka is a Latvian-born, UK-based exploratory designer with a background in design research and textile design for industry. She is passionate about design as a tool to drive systematic positive societal and environmental change through whole-system thinking and radical value-propositions. Most recently, Lizete has contributed to research into certification and standards at the Institute for Sustainability Leadership at the University of Cambridge. For DDC [2] Lizete is striving to explore the role of preventative care and future technologies in addressing psychological and physiological care for care-givers in global multi-cultural societies at voluntary, individual or professional care levels.
Mah Rana is a doctoral research student based in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Birkbeck College, University of London. Her current research is a phenomenological study investigating the lived experience co-creativity within the context of dementia-care. With a masters from the Royal College of Art, she has 30 years of experience as an independent arts, crafts and design practitioner and writer, exhibiting and lecturing internationally. Mah is also the founder of It’s Nice to Make, a craft/ wellbeing/ neuroplasticity research project with its first programme in 2012 at Headway East London working with survivors of acquired brain injury. More recently, she has started to use film as part of her research practice to counter mainstream cinema’s negative depictions of dementia by using filmmaking to reveal richer representations of dementia lives: https://vimeo.com/180566371
My name is Soh-yon Park, and I am pursuing Healthcare Design at Imperial College London and Royal College of Art as a Master’s student. I like to take on a new hobby every so often, talk to strangers like a true Canadian, and enjoy the glorious muscle-aches from bouldering. I still don’t understand whether my sense of curiosity for all things life comes from my multiple cultural identities, or Type 7/ESFP personality types. It’s another type of chicken-or-the-egg question. I previously double majored in Cellular/Molecular Biology and Economics, and researched in Parenting Children with Intellectual Disabilities and Inclusive Post-secondary Education.
Trudy Watt is the Principal of Waxwood, an architecture and design research studio that cultivates equitable access to well-being through advancements in architecture and interdisciplinary collaboration. She seeks to expose traditionally cloistered design knowledge to a diverse community, building a foundation of public discourse and curious investigation to evoke a robust future for all. Broadly summarized, her primary work areas are health equity, architectural diplomacy and fantasy. Trudy graduated from the University of Illinois – Chicago in 2011 and Princeton University in 2013. She has taught at Princeton, Columbia GSAPP, Jefferson University and the University of Pennsylvania and her work has been exhibited both in the United States and internationally.
Silke Hofmann is a trained womenswear designer who worked in the prêt-à-porter fashion industry for over a decade before starting her PhD at the Royal College of Art’s School of Design. Her interest in the wearer-garment relationship throughout her practice carries into Silke’s thesis. Based on the accounts of breast cancer survivors, she explores post-mastectomy lingerie product aesthetics and functionality. To foreground survivors needs and aspirations, Silke is experimenting with alternative surveys and fashion design tools in facilitated, participatory sessions. Her research is co-supervised by the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Professor Fiona Hackney, Fashion Theory, University of Wolverhampton, UK, has led a number of research projects, events and initiatives exploring the value of collaborative making (well-making) for health and well-being, including the AHRC-funded activist projects Craftivist Garden #wellmaking. Beyond the Toolkit, and a Catalyst funded symposium at the Wellcome Collection London (2017) prototyping making for health (see report: https://connected-communities.org/index.php/project_resources/connected-communities-catalyst-fund-reports-2016-18/).
Antonio Iadarola, PhD – My research journey started with a PhD on collaborative spaces for knowledge work at Università della Campania, Italy and Parsons DESIS Lab, where I explored the synergy of physical spaces and collaborative experiences in coworking organisations. I am now Associate Professor at Beijing Institute of Technology and I am based in New York where in 2015 I co-founded Studio Wé, a design practice helping clients design their future way of working. My research is focusing on developing a Work Design framework that integrates service, speculative and spatial design methods to co-design the choreography of digital-physical toolkits, work spaces and educational programs. I support the design community in NYC as a co-founder of the Service Design Network chapters and mentor.
Dr Vanja Garaj is Head of Brunel Design, where he also leads Professional Design Studio module, a part of MSc Integrated Product Design programme. Dr Garaj’s research is aimed at design, development and evaluation of innovative systems, products and services, with the focus on digital and digital-physical domains and the application of the latest technologies. His research activities have involved the areas of digital health, assistive technology, m-learning, e-government and social networking and the IoT. Current research projects include Impacting Business by Design, funded by Research England, StoryFutures, funded by Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and Inclusive Immersion, funded by Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
Maria Mullane – I identify as a Design-Thinking-Facilitator who occupies the disability and design for health space personally and academically. Currently on a journey to becoming a Design-Researcher driven by a curiosity to challenge our knowledge and behaviours in the Design for Health space. I am based in the UK (Edinburgh) with a background in lecturing CoDesign and Thinking practice for Rehabilitation with Edinburgh Napier University. Passionate about how designers view themselves, their ability and behaviour in certain contexts in order to interact with others: I am setting out to challenge Design’s identity proximal to Therapy spaces and how design can better listen to other professions the n particular occupational therapy for best practice in co-design spaces.Does Design Care…? (2) is timely in allowing me an opportunity to expand my network and learn from experts within the field of Design for Health and I look forward to this wonderful opportunity to network and help me clarify what I wish to pursue as a PhD study.In addition it allows me to carry out an Unfold-Design exercise in Japan inspired by an obsession with origami practice to occupy the mind, and in doing so to play collectively with the concept of ori-folding academic-papers ideally situated within Japan itself culturally. A place close to my heart.
Arvind Patil, I am a design practitioner, with formal training in engineering and Strategic Design Management. I am working with Good Business Lab Foundation, India as a Design Consultant and we deeply care about the well-being of factory workers deployed in an intense work environment. I am exploring design intervention and impact assessment through rigorous methods. I have immense interest in development economics, design for positive emotions and system thinking . I believe Understanding Human Behaviour (micro-environment) and Systems Thinking Design (macro-environment) are the essential aspects of effective & efficient design interventions.
Jaime Garcia is an experienced product designer and researcher from Bogotá, based in Tokyo and New York. He earned his Master in Business Design in Milan and is currently a doctoral student at Keio University. His research focuses on the emotive value of design for mobile societies, based on implementations of future scenarios and the materialization of new technologies. Jaime is involved in creative mentoring and is an integral part of multidisciplinary projects across the globe. His past clients include major brands such as Sony, Vitra, Hewlett Packard, and Pepsico.
Veronika Antoniou is the co-founder and creative director of Urban Gorillas, a Nicosia-based NGO. She’s also a licensed architect, landscape designer and urban planner. Her work spans many aspects, and includes the practice of architecture, socially-engaged art and research promoting sustainable cities. Her academic work was funded by the Japanese Ministry of Education and the Université Libre de Bruxelles. Veronika’s architectural experience includes projects in Japan, Switzerland and Cyprus. Veronika is at present actively involved in the operation and promotion of Urban Gorillas. Her skills cover, project development through design thinking, management & coordination, fundraising as well as human resource management.
Julia Backhaus lives in London and is an architect and director of the MArch for Professional Architecture at the Bartlett School of Architecture, where she also teaches Design. She is the founder and director of the London design studio, Fluxarchitects. Her work follows an interdisciplinary approach and interrogates connections between human health, science and architecture. She is currently building a cardiac hospital with the Sir Magdi Yacoub Foundation in Rwanda.
Marc Ruaix is a London based product designer born in Barcelona specialised in health-tech design. At the present time, he serves as Lead Product Designer at Patient Access, the leading digital product to manage your healthcare in the UK. His main area of interest in the health industry focuses on building new mechanisms to enable a healthcare system structure that can keep up with the latest technologies. He believes that design is the cornerstone to create clinically safe experiences that not only improve our lives but give us better control over them.
James Allen is a PhD researcher at the School of Art, Design, and Architecture, at the University of Huddersfield. He is a product designer with a focus on how to improve the well-being of people to increase quality of life, with a design-righted dust mask for construction workers from my undergraduate degree. He has since stayed on the well-being path, where his present research looks into how immersive technology can improve the well-being of menopausal women. It is an area he feels strongly about as it affects 13 million women in the UK, with limited design outputs to improve their quality of life.
Alison Gault is a Senior Lecturer in Textile Art, Design and Fashion and Employability lead at the Belfast School of Art, Ulster University. Alison has worked as a knitwear and product designer for over 20 years and is a Senior Fellow of the HEA and a Fellow of the RSA. With a research focus on fibres, yarns and warp and weft knitted structures, Alison is currently working with Bioflex creating a range of products to address the symptoms of diabetes, the menopause and SIDS where temperature regulation is essential for health and well-being. With sustainability as a key focus Alison has worked as a consultant with InvestNI and has successfully completed over 10 INI innovation and KTP/Fusion projects.
The Challenge
The challenges in care systems have become apparently intractable. There have been divide and conquer approaches to responsibility and accountability in care that act to cripple our ability to engage with the speculative and systemic approaches that design offers. Imagination has been cauterized by a risk-averse, Neo-liberal culture – the same culture that also profits enormously from turning care into a transaction.
Therefore, we propose the following 4 conditions for the design of possible futures:
- We call the first condition “Care of Complexity” – to design-with-care being sensitive and responsive to the boundaries between human and non-human (e. artefacts, animals, nature), local, global, and temporal contexts, and the value in both the commonality and diversity in post-global, post-national, and post-individual contexts.
- The second condition is “Care of the Project” – to design-with-care acknowledging the complex network of relationships between the material and immaterial, and challenging the dichotomy between human and non-human worlds. To achieve this, design must shift its existing paradigm and lead fundamental shifts in other disciplines.
- The third condition is “Care of Relations” – to design-with-care asserting that people today must repair, instead of cutting off, the relationship between people, things, environments, and ecology, not only to maintain a good balance, but also to emphasize the interdependence between these entities.
- The fourth condition about the future of care and care for the future, that we have to live with, is “Care of Carelessness”. We are inevitably careless and we need to be careful about our carelessness. To be care-full, care cannot be designed easily (e.g. into a service). Care must remain distinctive from commerce… and care cannot be an optional extra.
The Location
The capital of Japan, Tokyo, finds itself in the difficult position of having to face one of the most severe demographic emergencies in human history, with a population that is ageing at a very fast pace, and rural areas seeing their younger citizens depart to the cities.
In the past, the elderly were taken care of by families and communities, now they face loneliness and regular struggles with running their lives. In Japan, this situation has led to an unusual trend. Many elderly Japanese women are committing petty crimes in the hopes of being sent to prison, because they have nowhere else to go. But Japan is also the home of omotenashi, arguably the best hospitality manners, in the world; of karoshi, literally the death from overwork; of kodokushi, the Japanese phenomenon of people dying alone and remaining undiscovered for a long period of time; of amae, the sense of loyalty and shared responsibility that allows – for example – young children to take the train and run errands in complete safety…
Like the manufacture of ‘things’, Japan is moving aged-care offshore where the labour for care is cheap and abundant (like any raw material) by designing and building facilities for the elderly.
In the midst of such extreme contradictions, Tokyo seemed to us like the best place to host the next edition of Does Design Care…?
Tokyo has been chosen as the location for the second Does Design Care…? workshop, which will again see a group of inexperienced and experienced researchers, novice and expert practitioners, thinking, discussing, prototyping and actualising new visions of “Care”.
And we want you to join us!
Your Proposal
We know we all Care – or claim to Care…
We know that we don’t quite know why we Care…
We admit readily to Caring for meaningless things…
But we don’t want to admit that we know what we should be caring for…
Just as we don’t want to admit to what we really Care about…
So if you are interested in joining us, please submit a one-page Does Design Care…? proposal top.rodgers@lancaster.ac.ukthat clearly articulates the following:
- What do you care about?
- What do you not care about?
- Why is this important?
- What can design do here?
- What difference(s) will design make here?
- Who or what are you caring for?
- What are the consequences of this care?
One outcome planned as part of this workshop, will be a publication/catalogue of participants’ contributions that documents the second step in the Does Design Care…? series of workshops.
Organisers
Professor Paul Rodgers (Imagination, Lancaster University, UK)
Dr Giovanni Innella (AIIT, Tokyo Metropolitan University, JAPAN)
Adjunct Professor Craig Bremner (Charles Sturt University, AUSTRALIA)
Who can Apply?
- Academic and non-academic researchers of any discipline currently working on Care.
- Practitioners and representatives of any industry currently working on Care.
- Anyone concerned with Care.
Important Dates
Does Design Care…? Call-for-proposals launched – 18 January 2019.
Deadline for submission of one-page Does Design Care…?proposal – 18 March 2019.
Notice of acceptance and feedback – 18 April 2019.
Does Design Care…? Workshop dates – 1 to 3 July 2019.
Does Design Care…? is supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) under the AHRC’s Design Priority Area Leadership Fellowship scheme (Award Ref: AH/P013619/1).