Vulnerability by Design: Bodies, abilities, access and vulnerability

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Välkommen till det sjätte och sista seminariet i serien Vulnerability by Design – om etiska och politiska aspekter av socialt engagerad design, gränser, kroppar och miljöer. Medverkande: Hanna af Ekström, Catrine Lundell, Bess Williamson och Mahmoud Keshavarz.

I detta seminarium kommer våra gäster att diskutera hur den byggda världen bestående av objekt, rum och infrastrukturer möter eller tränger undan kroppar med olika förmågor och tillgänglighet. Vems kroppsliga normer och förmågor beaktas när designers designar för största möjliga inkludering? Genererar en mer gästvänlig designpraktik tillgång och rättvisa eller är det snarare så att design i sig är oförmögen att svara mot vad dessa skillnader förkroppsligar? Vilka former av design för vård kan utvecklas idag, med tanke på heterogeniciteten hos kroppsliga former och förmågor som är invecklade i den komplexa intersektionella matrisen av makt som påtvingas kroppar? Bess Wiliamson medverkar online.

Vulnerability by Design utforskar förhållandet mellan design och olika former av sårbarhet eller utsatthet kopplade till människa, djur och miljö. Design som socialt engagerad praktik engagerar sig i olika sammanhang men riskerar att även bidra till nya former av utsatthet. Vilka metoder och kunskaper behövs för att identifiera etiska och politiska aspekter av detta engagemang kopplat till olika förutsättningar och situationer? I en serie seminarium med olika fokus; gränser (Borders), kroppar (Bodies) och miljö (Environments), belysas och diskuteras detta med inbjudna svenska och internationella gäster.

Under det senaste decenniet har det skett en spridning av designmetoder som engagerar sig i frågor om sårbarhet och utsatthet kopplad till olika individer, grupper och varelser, från människor till djur och miljöer. Dessa metoder syftar ofta till att övervinna eller motverka utsatthet i dessa olika sammanhang. Här förlitar man sig ofta på designens centrala förmåga att spekulera, föreställa sig eller förutse möjliga relationer, arrangemang och konfigurationer mellan befintliga situationer och möjliga framtider. I dessa processer finns det dock många antaganden och oklarheter kring vad en utsatt situation är och om den kräver ett ingripande genom design. Vem och under vilka förhållanden kan hävda en mindre utsatt position där man kan närma sig en mera utsatt sådan och som man tycker är i behov av en designlösning? Är design bara ett verktyg, separerat från detta utsatta sammanhang som det ämnar ta sig an? Finns det en risk att designen skapar nya former av utsatthet genom att engagera sig i dessa sammanhang? Hur kan materialitet, partiskhet och begränsningar inom designen dessutom bidra till ytterligare utsatthet?

Vulnerability by Design är en serie publika evenemang på IASPIS med fokus på att kritiskt belysa och diskutera hur socialt engagerad praktik inom design och arkitektur kan engagera sig i brännande samhällsfrågor. Vulnerability by Design utvecklas av IASPIS, Konstnärsnämndens internationella program för bild och form, med Magnus Ericson, programansvarig form, i samarbete med Mahmoud Keshavarz, lektor i Design Studies på Göteborgs universitet och forskare vid Engaging Vulnerability på Institutionen för kulturantropologi och etnologi, Uppsala universitet.

Läs mer om seminariet och de medverkande nedan (på engelska).

Ta del av seminariet via Zoom

English

Vulnerability by Design: Bodies, abilities, access and vulnerability

Date: Wednesday 30 November 2022
Time: 5 – 7.30 pm (CET)
Place: IASPIS/Konstnärsnämnden and online
Address: Maria Skolgata 83, Stockholm
Language: English
Free admission, no reservation needed
Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87993752788

Welcome to the sixth and last seminar in the series of public seminars on the ethics and politics of design engagement across borders, bodies, and environments with Hanna af Ekström, Catrine Lundell, Bess Williamson and Mahmoud Keshavarz.

In this seminar, our guests will discuss how the built world of objects, spaces, and infrastructures meet or push back against the differences bodies have in terms of ability and access. Whose bodily norms and abilities are considered when designers design for the widest possible inclusion? Does a more hospitable design practice generate access and justice  or is it inherently unable to account for the differences that bodies embody? What forms of care designing can be generated today considering the heterogenicity of bodily forms and abilities entangled with the complex intersectional matrix of power imposed on bodies? Bess Williamson participates online.

Vulnerability by Design explores the intersections of what forms of human, animal and environmental vulnerabilities are engaged, resisted and/or produced by design and designing, and how the vulnerability, partiality and limits of design and designing are exposed through various tactics and techniques. It poses an urgent question: what methodologies and knowledge are required to recognize the ethics and politics of design engagement with our and others’ vulnerable conditions? Through three main themes of borders, bodies and environments, these questions and concerns will be highlighted and discussed in a series of seminars with Swedish and international guests.

In the recent decade there has been a proliferation of design practices that engage with the vulnerability of different individuals, groups and beings from humans to animals and environments. These design practices often aim to overcome or resist the vulnerable conditions in which they intervene. In doing so, they often rely on one of the main capacities of designing, in speculating, imagining or envisioning possible relations, arrangements and configurations between existing situations and possible futures.

In these processes, however, there are many assumptions and ambiguities around what constitutes a status as vulnerable which calls for a designerly intervention. Who claims the less vulnerable position from which others can be approached as more vulnerable and in need of a better design; and under what conditions? Is design merely a tool separated from the conditions of vulnerability, which it seeks to address? Is there a risk that through engaging with such conditions, the act of designing would generate other vulnerabilities often not recognized by the designers? Furthermore, how does materiality, partiality and limits of designing make design also vulnerable in its own way?

Vulnerability by Design is part of a public events programme at IASPIS, critically looking at how socially engaged practices within design, craft and architecture may engage with urgent societal issues. The programme has unfolded through various themes and formats from the autumn 2019. Vulnerability by Design is developed by IASPIS through Magnus Ericson, Head of Applied Arts at IASPIS with Mahmoud Keshavarz, Associate Professor in Design Studies, University of Gothenburg and Researcher at the Engaging Vulnerability Programme, the Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology, Uppsala University.

Hanna af Ekström is a board member of the disability organisation Utopia and a Ph.D. candidate in design at HDK/Valand – University of Gothenburg. Hanna’s research derives from the critique that the universal design concept – promoted by the UN and the Swedish government understands disability and accessibility through objective and technical engineer-driven descriptions. Through a theoretical framework of phenomenology, critical disability studies, and crip theory, her artistic research explores how design methods focusing on the senses and embodied knowledge can shift the perspectives of spaces and objects. In Utopia, Hanna regularly consults museums and other institutions regarding questions of inclusion and accessibility.

Catrine Lundell is a radio host, producer, journalist and an actor. She has done several programs and documentaries for The Swedish public Radio and Utbildningsradion like the series Funk and Nationen. All of which have an explicit disability perspective with a personal touch. The documentary Memories of a photo from 2012 tells the story about being involved in a research study as a child and the effects of lack of ethics. She is convinced that it’s possible to incorporate the disability perspective in all stories about human life when you least expect it.  At the moment she is working as an actor at the national theatre for children – Unga Klara.

Bess Williamson is a writer and researcher of diverse histories and practices of design that extend expertise to users and communities, and challenge designers to address access and power in design. She is Professor of Art History at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her publications include Accessible America: A History of Disability and Design (2019) which traces the history of design responses to disability rights from 1945 to recent times. She has also co-edited Making Disability Modern: Design Histories (2020) with Elizabeth Guffey, which is a collection of case studies of objects, buildings, and systems that reflect changing design approaches to disability from the 18th century to the present.