AGENT MAKERS - The un-masking of environmental agency through design for speculative social innovation (original) (raw)
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Over the past two decades Design has actively engaged with sustainability as both a topic for, and as an agenda for intervention in entrenched social and technical practices. The collective expertise of the authors is in the area of design for sustainability, which we articulate as the practice of Social and Sustainable Design. Our work deals with projects that focus upon design as a socially engaged and negotiated creative practice with a strong sustainable design or service design focus. Often located as visions for the future these projects are speculative and propositional, and are undertaken through a set of defined methods and strategies to think through the projects and develop the solutions. In recent years we have seen the amplification of the social dimension in our projects and we have also realized the outcomes of the projects as social innovations. We campaign for a dematerialized world and have seen design projects become new, viable and self-sustaining social entrepreneurship ventures. The paper is undertaken as a reflection to describe a codified practice of the design of social and sustainable intervention. The paper offers a positioning and alternative territory for design and a discussion of the methods that we deploy in our shared practice of building a pedagogy for situated design research practice.
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We discuss three cases of transformative creative practice that aim to address large-scale societal issues related to the climate emergency by taking a series of interconnected, small-scale actions. Drawing on our first-hand perspectives, we reflect on how the cases address such issues by proliferating across different social contexts and supporting creative engagements of diverse stakeholders. We offer this empirical reflection at a time of rapid social and ecological change that has affected all life on the planet. Eco-social challenges and structural inequalities caused by shifts in global economic, political and technological power require new approaches and transformative actions to stabilize and restore ecosystems on which life depends. Our research shows that creative practice in art and design has a critical role to play in these processes of transformation. By discussing the opportunities and challenges encountered by our three cases within their transformative efforts and ...
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