Motivation Letter

Back when the idea of pursuing a MA in Interaction Design at the Estonian Academy of Arts seemed like a far away dream. This is the motivation letter that helped me get in the program.

As humanity, we are facing a problem of design.

Consumed by our personal search for financial freedom, we are bound to focus most of our energy into feeding a profit-based system that is designed for perpetual growth and inequality, pushing the limits of what society and nature can provide. While these problems seem daunting, we have the potential to design the processes and interactions that shape the world.

What if we were to be able to create an economic system that was regenerative and redistributive by design? What if we were to design our world corresponding to the calls of a meshwork of life in which we untangle our lives?

Interaction design opens up this very exciting possibility. By exploring and transforming relationships between humans, technology, spaces and the social world we create, we have the opportunity of designing relations that foster life and shape the future.

Contemporary communications, massive interconnectivity, the boom in technological innovations and viral spreading of information and disinformation present an opportunity to rethink our industries, our financial products and, most importantly, our values. And interaction design is at the forefront of this transformation.

Despite having enjoyed studying economics and anthropology, I’ve felt in many ways stuck in theoretical and descriptive practices. Even though these topics are important on their own they fall short when applied to transformative social and technological design.

This program is an opportunity for me to learn how to apply these and other tools in a practical sphere where I hope to be empowered to think about and create systems that embrace all life’s components intertwined in today’s problems. I’m excited to merge the worlds of economics, anthropology and design in developing the next generation of products and economics systems that incubate holistic human, environmental and technological interaction.