Age of Wonderland Daily Talk: Empowerment, Eindhoven, World Design Event
A report by Floor Fiers
Empowerment inside and out, strengthening yourself and others
Empowerment is the last theme of the talk shows during the Dutch Design Week of 2017. This overarching topic of empowerment is what Age of Wonderland is really about: giving others — from all around the world — the place to take the stage. Today, Arne Hendriks and Christine Wagner discuss empowerment in the context of three guests. All guests have participated in the talk show before and have returned today to conclude the last Age of Wonderland talk.
First guest of today is Rajbir Kaur, who provided us with a workshop yesterday on breathing techniques. In today’s talk show, she talks about her ways of empowering herself. Second is guest is Gloria Kiconco, who is a poet, journalist and editor from Uganda. She enlightens us with her approach to achieving empowerment. Axel Coumans is our last guest today. This current Design Academy student interned with Hivos and reflects on his time at this year’s Dutch Design Week.
Reacting instead of responding
Rajbir starts by openly telling the audience the mental breakdowns she used to have. Over time, she took power over her own mental health by changing her attitude towards her environment. Instead of reacting, she now responds to stimuli. Responding, in contrast to reacting, is a much more conscious process. For Rajbir, her own breathing is a means of noticing what is going on inside of her. Noticing her mental well being is the starting point of reflecting, which potentially leads to the ability to change. Breathing as well as being conscious about her way of responding empowers Rajbir. It enables her to remain calm and handle day-to-day situations.
Re-doing the process
Gloria has been organizing writing collaborations and co-creation, which she describes as “baptism by fire”. Gloria and her collaborators learn while working together. The workshops are really a product of waiting for financial support from governments and other organizations. As there is little funding and she often needs to pause her projects, Gloria created a workshop around personal objects. When participants bring personal objects, it becomes easier to discover the bigger story or idea behind the object. According to Gloria, finding the bigger idea — which often relates to a larger community — as well as re-doing the process over and over again is empowering. The more you do, she proclaims, the more you believe in your own ability to act. Falling down and needing the help of your community to get up, in its turn, empowers the entire community.
In Axel’s addition to the talk show, he seems to elaborate on the snowball effect of empowerment. He truly feels that the community formed during the Age of Wonderland project takes care of one another. If we all care about the people in our environment, Axel believes that soon enough the entire world cares for each other.
Use your power to stage the less privileged
As we get to the ending to the talk show, I feel — for the first time — the urge to speak up. After observing and writing about five Daily Age of Wonderland talks, I feel the need to comment right now. Empowerment for me is about more than embracing yourself and taking care of your own well being. As a white, Western woman of a relatively fortunate background, I believe it is important to acknowledge the privilege coming along with my social identity. Since I do not know what it means to be non-white, non-Western or non-heterosexual, I do not always consider it to be my position to speak up. However, I do believe it is my responsibility to use my power to create a stage for less privileged fellows. That is empowerment for me.
However you might explain the term for an individual, for a community or for an entire social identity group, empowerment seems the way to go. Age of Wonderland ultimately embraces ideals of empowerment. Even though there is still a road ahead of us, my time with Age of Wonderland during this year’s Dutch Design Week has been full of moments of inspiration and activation.
This Day of Learning was part of Age of Wonderland’s Daily Talks.
At the core of World Design Event, People’s Pavilion at Eindhoven’s Strijp-S, Age of Wonderland hosted a daily talk show. Each day focused on a specific topic: Activism, Energy, Ecology, Learning by doing, Sense of self, Community, Intimacy, Empathy and Empowerment.
visit www.ageofwonderland.nl to find out more about this program.
