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Design for a Time Between Worlds
Get PDFFacing global crises that are interconnected and overlapping, it is clear that the world as we know it is in transition. Some call this the meta-crisis. Some situate us in a time between worlds, where we are “living off of expired stories” (Machado de Oliveira, 2021) and need to ready ourselves for different ones. In the tradition of systemic design, we seek to inquire into how design practices can be adapted for deeply complex contexts like transition. What does it mean to situate our design practice in the societal transitions we find ourselves in and with some directionality toward the transitions we desire? We are asking ourselves these questions in an ongoing project focused on transitions to well-being economies in Toronto, Canada.
Here, we outline four systemic design orthodoxies (i.e., norms that guide thinking and action) that we hypothesize can be limiting working within the context of transition: rushing, seriousness, needing requisite variety, and creating anew. In our project, we experiment with flipping these orthodoxies and working from a foundation of slowing down, light-heartedness, following existing relations, and noticing existing wisdom and innovation. In our presentation, we share stories and learnings from the project thus far and reflect on what it means to design in this time between worlds
Reflections and Considerations on Running Creative Visualization Learning Activities
No full textThis paper draws together nine strategies for creative visualization activities. Teaching visualization often involves running learning activities where students perform tasks that directly support one or more topics that the teacher wishes to address in the lesson. As a group of educators and researchers in visualization, we reflect on our learning experiences. Our activities and experiences range from dividing the tasks into smaller parts, considering different learning materials, to encouraging debate. With this paper, our hope is that we can encourage, inspire, and guide other educators with visualization activities. Our reflections provide an initial starting point of methods and strategies to craft creative visualisation learning activities, and provide a foundation for developing best practices in visualization education
Advancing Integrated Care through Embedded Research: Early Lessons from Two Canadian Training Programs
Get PDFFostering shared intentionality for diverse learners through cross-sensory interaction design
Get PDFAs the theme of this year’s conference suggests, cognitive diversity among learners and educators is increasingly acknowledged. However, in our societies that increasingly require advanced education, training, and technical skills, the pressure to standardize learning objectives, delivery techniques and delivery tools, especially online, is high. In these situations, learners and educators of diverse cognitive phenotypes and abilities experience learning environments that are a poor match for their abilities, making effective delivery of educational content challenging. In addition to learning about our work developing cross-sensory interaction design principles, workshop participants will share lived experiences of the pandemic-induced experimentation in online learning over the past two years to co-design prototypes that address pain points identified by participants
that old home of mine
Get PDFMy research centers an exploration of Métis identity and Michif ways of knowing through a practice-based method of inquiry into beadwork and beaded objects. This thesis document is written in the form of letters written to my daughter and is organized around the idea of building a Michif-self archive by stitching together narrative writing, letters, poems, family histories, and short stories. While reflecting on the many relationships that have held me with care and grounded me within my understanding of my own Michif identity. At its core this research is about love, cultural knowledge transfer, and the practice of remembering and re-remembering past, current, and future ancestors. This document centers my relationship with my daughter as I explore the role of motherhood in relation to Métis culture
The Time Moving exhibit: Exploring perceptions of time in end‐of‐life experiences
Get PDFBackground
Conversations about end of life rarely take place beyond healthcare spaces and in advance of imminent death. As the Canadian ageing population increases and new policies and options emerge for end-of-life choices, there will be an increasing need for supports for decision-making on end of life. Time Moving was a participatory art exhibit created to engage participants in reflections on end-of-life experiences and the ways in which their perception of time fluctuated within these moments.
Design
A participatory and constructivist approach informed decisions on exhibit design and analysis. The Time Moving exhibit was installed in a downtown university hall for 10 days during the 2019 annual DesignTO festival, open to all members of the public. The exhibit was used as the primary method of data collection. There were three prompts informed by concepts from prior work on time perception. Participants were invited to respond by drawing, writing or constructing.
Outcome
There were over 120 contributions of participants over the duration of the Time Moving exhibit. These contributions revealed new insights related to temporal perception and end-of-life experiences. Participants shared their perception of time during end-of-life experiences in a variety of ways, revealing a diversity of perceptions of time beyond calendar and clock time, including time experienced as a spiral.
Conclusions
The insights on time perception highlight opportunities for approaching dialogue on end of life and in grief support, and for exhibit as a mechanism for research and education.
Patient or Public Contribution
As a public exhibit, over 120 people contributed ideas, personal stories, drawings and other creative outputs to the exhibit. An estimated 250 people visited the exhibit
Sentimental Objects, Meaningful Connections: Designing a Narrative-Based Framework to Support the Passing of Significant Personal Belongings into New Hands.
Get PDFCanada’s population is aging: there are now more people in this country over the age of 65 than under the age of 15. This older population is looking to the future and seeking more freedom and less home maintenance; alternately, they are unable to stay in their homes due to changed physical, mental, or financial concerns, that entail moving out of necessity, even unwillingly. In the process, many baby boomers are downsizing, decluttering their existing homes where they raised their families and accumulated a lifetime of goods, including significant personal belongings that are markers of personal identity. This process of downsizing and purging leads to emotional roadblocks when these individuals are confronted with these sentimental, personal belongings: items that they would either like to pass on to the next generation or dispose of, but find doing so extremely difficult. This study examines this phenomenon both from the perspective of older persons who have recently downsized and from individuals of any age who have recently moved and have been faced with the reality of parting with significant belongings.
This study seeks to answer the questions: what is the connection between personal objects and memory? How might we use storytelling to access, preserve, and share these stored memories, ultimately working toward the development of a framework that would allow for these stories to be shared, ensuring that the object retains its value while passing it onto someone else, in a way that minimizes a sense of pain or loss on the part of the original owner
Four Corners, Four Angels, Ten Stones, Ten Veils
Get PDFIn the form of a series of letters written to my daughter, my ancestors, rivers in Toronto and in my ancestral village, this work draws on the Jewish literary forms of Midrash and Talmudic discourse in which the mundane and the sacred intertwine. This text weaves together personal, domestic, and historical narratives with dreams, spirit journeys, creation stories, poetry, a story I wrote when I was 8 years old, metaphysical time travel, Jewish mysticism, and a series of interdisciplinary artworks.
Using textiles, embroidery patterns and knitting as text, these pieces tell stories about birth, death, exile, diaspora, motherhood, and the creation of personal rituals to recover from ancestral trauma, colonial violence, patriarchal narratives, and disembodiment.
The Sephardi women in the Ottoman empire from whom I descend on my matrilineal line, offer a model for resistance, innovation, and resilience in the face of adversity and oppression from within their own diasporic patriarchal communities. From within the confines of the domestic sphere and despite restrictions which barred them from learning to read, learning sacred language and accessing the public realms, these women invented rituals, original prayer compositions, developed folk healing methods and expressed themselves through singing Judeo-Spanish folk songs and the creation of textiles and embroidery.
Inspired by their example, my research claims agency to re-interpret and adapt Jewish ritual, tapping into its hidden mystical, embodied, and shamanic roots, to address contemporary questions and personal narratives that need healing.
The domestic and cyclical methodology and critical framework of my work emerged out of the restrictions I experienced as a new mother during the COVID 19 pandemic working primarily in fragments of time while my daughter was napping. The construction of embroidered and knit garments were inspired by a methodology called “Wandering Textiles,” a term coined by scholar Mikal Held, to describe the process used by Sephardi women in which they created ceremonial textiles by repurposing and stitching together remnants of domestic fabrics such as pillows, bedspreads, and clothing.
This research makes use of the concept of Tikkun Olam, which translates from Hebrew as “to repair the world” as the basis for a research methodology rooted in healing ancestral trauma through creative practice. Through the interdisciplinary combination of knitting, embroidery, walking, relationship building with rivers, singing, dreaming, performance and video editing, this work images into being metaphysical time travel in which tikkun (healing) across multiple time frames and spaces is possible, while considering what kind of stories are worth transmitting to the next generation
Accessible Cosmetic Packaging for Visually Impaired and Blind Users
Get PDFVisually impaired and blind users often find it challenging to identify cosmetic products, and colours and read the label information because of the lack of accessible cosmetic packaging. The goal of this study was to understand the characteristics of and design opportunities for accessible packaging. Four research questions were examined: 1) What features of the packaging design will make it easier to distinguish between various cosmetic products? 2) How may packaging be made to provide Visually impaired/Blind consumers with access to product label information? 3) How do Visually impaired/Blind individuals conceptualize colour and how may this be incorporated into product design/packaging? 4) What application can be developed to aid and enhance the user experience of existing cosmetic packaging? To answer these questions inclusive design framework was adopted, and a co-design methodology was used. Three co-designers took part in the study. Findings were grouped into two themes 1) Characteristics of packaging required to improve user's experience and 2)Characteristics that would minimize the need for users to seek advice from others prior to product selection or use. Findings were used 1) to create an accessible packaging checklist and 2) to design an app that helps visually impaired and blind users identify products, and colours and get expert feedback on how the make-up is applied. The application is named Beauty Ally. The checklist will help brands develop accessible cosmetic packaging for visually impaired and blind consumers. The app will enhance the user experience of visually impaired and blind consumers with existing packaging by helping them identify products, read label information, and colours and seek advice from volunteers
Fragmented storytelling in Lynda Barry’s graphic memoir One! Hundred! Demons!
Get PDFThis paper explores fragmentation, looking at comics artist, Lynda Barry, and her comic memoir One! Hundred! Demons! In doing so, I read several visual self-portraits by women artists alongside “demons” from Lynda Barry’s text, thus thinking about women’s self-representation and the power of fragmentation. Barry uses memory in One! Hundred! Demons! allowing herself to work through and process events in her life. Comics combine embodied experience as well as mental processing and remembering. Mind and body come together to create meaning and to process the effects of embodied fragmentation. This is principally done through exploration of three types of fragmentation: with regards to the representation of women’s bodies, of memories, and in the structure of comics form itself