Reflecting on my experience in the Design for Sustainability subject

Friday Cakes

Today was the culmination of face to face block week sessions on campus. I really enjoyed the week's process of breaking and making, overcoming vulnerability anxiety and welcoming CHANGE!

It was brilliant how we transitioned from making collages and learning to work in teams and let our classmates take over our posters and reimagine the design and message we so carefully constructed. The precious was no more, the old mould of self was cracking and the butterfly of change emerged. The beauty of co-creating was clear and I often found myself with a lump in my throat. This was priceless. This is why I will always value education. This is dreams are realised and hope is formed. This is where what matters matters from the mundane to the significant, from the North to the South, we have arrived with one goal in sight and in mind.

The whole process is governed by theory and structure to help guide us on the journey of discovery. Me and my group (part-time classmates) worked on a research problem that we all have experienced at some point in our careers...not being adequately equipped with financial knowledge in order to successfully run a design practice. Before we tackled the assignment we briefly introduced ourselves and gave a quick background on who we were and how it came to be that we landed up doing the postgrad diploma. I would describe it as a form of initiation, an emotional hug if you will...an olive branch recognising that we are different and are willing to surrender to the task at hand.

The exercise was challenging and it required all of us to open up and draw from our collective experiences. We slowly learned to trust each other so that we could better understand and empathise with one another. This idea of 'lowering our guards' was a personal challenge for me and I quickly learnt it was true for my group partners too. It was comforting to know that financial insecurity was a common problem in creative fields. The fact that we all shared this experience brought us closer together and it was interesting listening to each other's stories and how they overcame challenges and earned their battle scars. We focused on one problem then soon discovered it was not specific enough. We then made maps and asked questions continuously evaluating whether or not we were on the right track. We determined what the actual problem is and who the stakeholders are. We ran our problem through Chatgpt (an A.I. driven source of information) to see what would come up and it was similar to the work we had done. This affirmation did not influence our decision to keep on par with what we discovered, rather it gave us a type of evidence confirming that problems don't exist in a vacuum.

Here are a series of maps we drew in class showing the process of learning and developing our research. 

Constantly questioning if we were on the right track. What I found fascinating was how we chose a simple problem to tackle yet we kept unpacking complex scenarios and more questions. Assumptions left stains on memory like coffee circles on wooden tables. We had to wipe the table clean to prevent our assumptions from absorbing in too deeply in subconscious even though the idea was captivating. We knew we had to move on or ruin the wooden furniture that held us up through our lives. It was apparent that the furniture we liked to chill on was not suitable to the new space we were developing. Fashion, Visual Communication and Architecture combined to disrupt our respective memories and what we thought we knew as truth was shattered. Like fine seeds in the breeze we found new grounds to settle on and germinate. New ideas were sprouting.