Critical Contextualisation
Now more than ever do designers have the power to bring about social, economic or political change through their designs. This is the practice of design activism and it is very closely linked to our mass extinction memorial project in cooperation with the Edinburgh Zoo. Design activism has many connotations in today’s society both positive and negative; many see the word activism and instantly think that it is just an excuse to try and disrupt the current order just for the sake of it. This can be demonstrated by this quote from Mong Palatino when he highlights common misconceptions about activism:
“Rallies are violent, street rallies are illegal, and they cause destabilisation.”
In fact design activism is the opposite, it is trying to bring about change by offering the world a new and improved version of it. The basis of design activism I think is summed up well by this quote from Thomas Markussen:
The goal of this critical contextualisation is to analyse how our design meets these clear criteria set out by Markussen by comparing it to other successful examples of design activism.
Our Memorial
First thing I want to talk about is our project and briefly explain what it was about. Our memorial consisted of an abstracted wooden statue of a Sumatran Tiger upon a concrete base. The tiger itself was constructed with individual blocks that could be taken out from its shell by visitors, mainly children. These blocks had etched into them information and statistics about Sumatran Tigers and other endangered animals. The blocks would also act as a souvenir for the children with an opportunity for them to connect with other people about the memorial over social media and therefore raise awareness. This was supposed to symbolise how human interaction and their relationship with the animal kingdom is slowing but surely destroying it. The project was named after the Sumatran Tiger at Edinburgh Zoo, Jambi.
1. Promote Social Change
Design Activism isn’t just based around bringing about social change by completely rethinking the world as we know it. It is also and potentially more importantly about moulding our future world by teaching the population how to treat it. This is summed up by Buckminster Fuller in his typical fashion:
Education is so important because it is a way of forward planning and making sure that the mindset of the future generations of humans know how they can fix the problems we have created. An example of this is board game ‘The Sky’s the Limit’.
This is a board game that helps teach young South Africans about the dangers of going into gangs when they reach their adolescence. This game was a brilliant way to make young South African children conscious of their actions in the future and wary of how it may effect them in the long run. By doing this the developers of the game hope that more children will grow up knowing the dangers of gang-violence and from a young age have a goal in their life that veers away from the enticing and inviting environment that gang culture provides.
This is also a technique that we focused greatly upon and tried to employ within our own project. By including these interactive, wooden souvenirs that the children can take away with them, it allows the zoo to educate these children about the strains that our society puts upon the animal kingdom and how they could potentially change their actions to help save the animals. This acts as a tool to make the child share their experience whether that be in person or over social media with other people and pass on the knowledge they have learned. In the long run this will hopefully be one of the many small acts that changes the child’s perspective and mould their adult mind to help fix the problems that past generations have caused.
2. Raising Awareness About Values and Beliefs (e.g. in relation to climate change, sustainability etc.)
Our world is at a crossroads. With everyday passing our future becomes more and more uncertain. Climate change has become a sociopolitical issue that unites all across the world, because for the first time, one singular problem has the ability to create irreversible change in our world without our control. It is no secret that we are destroying our planet yet the powers that be seem to draw a blind eye.
For the first time in my living memory, we are starting to see normal people take to the streets to protest the change that needs to be brought about. There have been multiple acts of harmful civil disobedience by movements such as the Extinction Rebellion who have been making waves recently with their demonstrations such as their protest on North Bridge in Edinburgh or as pictured here their demonstration in the House of Commons.
Now for a rebellion to be successful, they must first create a strong identity to stand by and this is where the activism meets design. The Extinction Rebellion’s identity harks back to student protests in Paris in 1968 with the use of homemade, minimal posters that act as the visual voice of the movement. Here are some examples of what I am talking about:
They look pretty similar don’t they? Now this visual impact was what we were trying to achieve in our project too although not necessarily in a graphic medium. With our memorial we wanted to achieve this impact by creating the same feeling you get when you see the sheer majesty and elegance of the Sumatran Tiger for the first time.
By using a sleek wooden form with the abstracted missing blocks, I think that we were able to create that same visual impact that was needed. As soon as you see the posters shown above you instantly know that they are for a rebel cause, there is something extremely direct about their values and beliefs and that is what you see with our project. It is clear from the start this is not a statue celebrating the majesty of the Jambi, but is in fact a commemoration to his close demise.
3. Questioning the constraints that mass production and consumerism place on people’s everyday life
One of the world’s greatest current pollutants is the fast fashion industry. It is speedily growing and does not show any signs of stopping. The fast fashion market is the essence of the throwaway, consumerist culture we live in with some items of clothes being used perhaps once before they are put in the rubbish. Here is one scary statistic provided by Eco Warrior Princess:
It is obvious that something must be done about this and there are many ideals behind its mass production agenda that should be called into question. One design installation has done that in Durham in 2013.
The Madrid based arts group Luzinterruptus designed a Christmas Tree in 2013 created completely out of shopping bags. The idea of it was to make people question what they bought for their Christmas shopping and how much effect it is having on the environment. This piece of design resonates strongly with everyday people as it uses such a universal image and therefore makes people begin to question beliefs they have held dear and taken for granted for such a long time.
This design is also effective because it takes perhaps a second glance or a harder look to actually realise what it is and what it is made of. By doing this it takes such a well-known image and twists it slightly, much like the detournement work of Guy Debord. By changing the meaning ever so slightly, you make the user question what the initial meaning is and this is what we were trying to do with our memorial.
Our project was not there to commemorate Jambi as I have discussed, the idea behind it was to make you question the literal human impact you had on the memorial, how you yourself effected it. I think we managed to create that twist very successfully by designing a memorial that after first glance you think may be a celebration of the chance to have Jambi at Edinburgh Zoo but actually speaks of the reality that in not very long, Sumatran Tigers will only survive within a zoo.
In conclusion, the aim of this article was to lay down in three direct, specific points what makes effective design activism and through the use of other examples of design activism and design for social change, I have managed to analyse how our Mass Extinction Memorial meets all these criteria and works as a successful example of design activism.
Image Links
http://ludenslab.nl/portfolio/the-sky-is-the-limit-board-game/
https://occupysf.net/index.php/2019/04/04/rebels-strip-off-in-house-of-commons/
