Making Sense & Meaning¶
Deliverables¶
How design can reconfigure systems of extraction?
Which worlds can we design with the power of today’s tools?
How can we design the transition towards these worlds?
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How do we move away from extraction?
Who do we build alternative worlds with tools we have today?
How do we use the future and past to transition to different ways of being?
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What does the future mean to you?
What does it look like?
How do we get there?
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Ok let’s start here.
Why you ask?
Because I found them to be needlessly difficult. While I understand them due to my background and context, I question whether my loved ones would be able to comprehend them. This is why I believe that clarification is an act of love.
We are often confronted with complex ideas and concepts that may be difficult to understand for those outside of a specific field or background. While it is important to have conversations about important topics, it is equally important to ensure that these conversations are accessible to everyone. When we share our ideas, we must do so in a way that is easy to understand and allows others to build upon them.
This is particularly important when it comes to conversations about the future. As humans, we are always looking towards the future and hoping for a better tomorrow. Whether it is through science, technology, or social movements, we all have a vision of what we want the future to look like. However, these visions are most often shaped by a narrow range of privileged perspectives that do not necessarily represent the diverse communities that make up our society.
This is especially true when it comes to the design industry, where the future is often speculated upon and imagined through an European and colonial mindset - even though we are living in the future Europe has speculated for the world. While it was greatly appreciated that we had diverse voices lecture to us within this class, the lack of diversity of thought and methodology has been missing throughout the rest of the masters.
It is important to platform marginalized voices in conversations about the future because these are the communities that have been doing “futures” work long before it became a popular topic within the industry. When faced with systemic barriers created by colonialism our Trans, Indigenous, Black Queer, Disabled, and POC answers continued to live, fight, and imagine a future where we thrived. They have held onto the radical belief that a better world is possible, and many social movements for good have come from their communities.
Despite this, these voices are often ignored or dismissed within the design industry. It is important to ask ourselves why this is the case. Why aren’t trans, indigenous, black, queer, disabled, and POC voices platformed in this space? Why aren’t we turning to those who are masters in hope to shape our visions of the future? By ignoring these voices and not teaching what they say, we are missing out on valuable perspectives and ideas that could help us create a more inclusive and equitable worlds.
I believe that it is essential to create space for these voices to be heard. We must work to ensure that our conversations about the future are inclusive and representative of all members of our society. This means creating opportunities for those who are marginalized to share their ideas and shape the future in their own image.
However, creating space for marginalized voices is not just about giving them a platform. It is also about recognizing the ways in which systemic oppression has silenced their voices in the past. It is about acknowledging the ways in which our society has failed to support and uplift these communities, and working to dismantle those systems of oppression.
I wanted to hear from non-professionalized designers, particularly my Queer and BIPOC friends, who continue to problem-solve, dream, and create beautiful ways of being and living for themselves despite living within our systems of oppression. That’s why I worked to simplify the difficult questions and created a graphic to share them in order to create an opportunity for more voices to be heard in the “futures” design conversation.
What I created these weeks
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Along with the imagery, I captioned the image asking to hear from them and providing context to why I am asking, all in a light playful tone.
“🔈hey what do you think the future is?🔈
collecting stories and thoughts for my design thesis and just to expand my brain!
hopefully to put in a paper that i’d rather submit as a video 🤧 - so get ready to hit record (OR write if you don’t like the camera 🎥)
prioritizing my QTBIPOC loves - but feel free to comment what you think the future means? imagine beyond what colonialism and capitalism has sold you !!”
I was overjoyed to have 4-6 friends directly reach out to me expressing their interest in participating. And to ensure a diverse group of voices, I reached out to 2-3 more friends to seek their opinions and gauge their interest. After they confirmed their willingness to participate, I immediately shared with them the details and expectations for this project.
This was the specific ask:
“To dream of the future is a radical act. As marginalized folks, looking to the future has way survive colonialism. Hoping one day we will thrive.
I am in a masters that is asking us to build “alternative” futures. Yet we are missing the real experts in this field: Trans, Black, Indigenous, Queer, Disabled, POC, and otherwise marginalized folks.
That is why I would love to hear from you. If you could do away with colonialism - what could the present/future/past be? In a short video - please let me know the your answers to the following questions:
- What does the future mean to you?
- What does it look like?
- How do we get there?
Please keep your answers short - but do what is natural! Feel free change the questions or destroy them!”
It’s been less than a week since I started collecting and analyzing the responses from my loved ones, so I’m still in the process of doing so. As more responses come in and as I find the time to do so, I plan on sharing their answers in different formats. One of my goals is to create a video using the footage they provided, which I’ll do my best to post here but it will likely be primarily shared on my social media.
With the responses I’ve collected so far, I’m beginning to see how each answer is interconnected and can be tied back to the original questions. Despite the fact that I simplified the questions for my non-professionalized designer friends, their answers reveal insights that are both personal and universal.
For instance, Marcelo’s answer on accessibility and creating public spaces for everyone speaks to a larger issue of inclusivity in design. Their ideas on how to make public spaces more accessible can be extrapolated to other areas of design, such as product or digital design. What struck me most about Marcelo’s answer was their desire to become a good queer ancestor and pave the way for future generations. It’s a sentiment that Marine also shared in their response.
As a professional designer at Artefact in Seattle, Marine has been struggling with the constraints of a capitalistic system that stifles creativity and self-expression. Their hopes for the future of design align with their personal values, emphasizing the importance of being able to bring our whole selves to our work. Marine’s use of the metaphor of “dancing” to explain the future of design was both poetic and profound. They spoke of the need for improvisation, listening to our partners, and being more focused on the process of design rather than the final product.
What struck me most about Marine’s response was their emphasis on joy and the need for it in our futures. They spoke of their experience going to dance events in the LA Chinese-American community as a young teen and how that inspired their vision for the future of design. It’s a vision that prioritizes intergenerational communities, inclusivity, and joy.
Overall, the responses I’ve received so far have given me hope for the future of design. They’ve shown me that even non-professionalized designers, like my queer and BIPOC friends, have valuable insights to share and are actively engaged in problem-solving, dreaming, and creating. I’m excited to continue collecting and analyzing their responses and to create a video featuring their voices. I hope that by amplifying their perspectives, we can begin to shift the conversation around design towards a more inclusive, joyful, and equitable future.
Additionally, as an add on to my response, I asked ChatGPT to recommend a list of books and articles about design written by Queer and/or BIPOC designers. I hope you go through the list and choose a couple that could be included in next years class!
- Decolonizing Design” by Ahmed Ansari and Ellie Kawa
- “Black, Brown, and Beige: Surrealist Writings from Africa and the Diaspora” edited by Franklin Rosemont
- “Black and Blur” by Fred Moten
- “The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study” by Stefano Harney and Fred Moten
- “Postcolonial Design and Art” edited by Paul T. Lovejoy and Sasha A. Harrison
- “Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code” by Ruha Benjamin
- “Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need” by Sasha Costanza-Chock
- “African Fractals: Modern Computing and Indigenous Design” by Ron Eglash
- “Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples” by Linda Tuhiwai Smith
- “Indigenous and Decolonizing Studies in Education: Mapping the Long View” edited by Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Eve Tuck, and K. Wayne Yang.
- “Decolonization is Not a Metaphor” by Eve Tuck & K. Wayne Yang