Jennifer Leonard on Activist Design
Jennifer Leonard recently published a response to the following question, asked of her while speaking at New York and Los Angeles based event The Creator Series. She was asked:
If the sort of design you speak of represents people and projects who are instigating (and helping to sustain) positive change in the world, then why don’t you just call this strand of design ‘activism’?
Her response teased out differences between activism and design that has a social/economic/ecological motivation. Her distinctions are useful in defining each, and their overlap:
Design with a social bent is activism-like, but it carries responsibility for the long run. It’s practical in nature, not pie-in-the-sky. It sets out to operationalize change, not just talk about it – or stage riots to spur it.
One huge caveat: I do not mean to imply that activism is always riotous or that activism via rioting isn’t right. Equally, I’m not saying that “design” is in any way righteous.
Having come to design via activism, I would say she is dead on. The design community starts with a problem and moves to solve it. Functionally, it is the implementation phase of what activists have achieved- our awareness. Indeed, if it weren’t for their visionary, revolutionary tactics, the design community might not have been made aware of the issues at hand.
“So what’s important here is recognizing context and ensuring that activism and design are not set up to be mutually exclusive practices,” Jennifer wrote. “Denigrating activism keeps it from being as effective as it might otherwise be. Serving design up on a silver platter gives the impression it’s exclusive at a time when we can’t afford it to be. Activism and design aren’t one in the same but they need not discount the other!”
I would take her words a step further and say that activism and design aren’t one in the same, but they must not discount the other. We are requisite parts to social change, and our alliance should be celebrated!
Related posts:
- ESCAPE THE OVERCODE: Activist Art in the Control Society
- Plates and Records: Brooklyn’s Artist/Activist-led Public Supper Club
- Cultural Geography and Place Based Problem-Solving
- IssueLab’s Research Remix Contest: CFW
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