Earth Logic fashion and design: How can we organise our understanding of design for maximum agency to make urgent change?
Dr. Tham will reflect and propose how metadesign and the perspective of Earth Logic can open up new thought and action spaces enabling every one in every place to make a difference.
The event is free, but requires registration.
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Event language(s)
Decades of interventions at the levels of products and even discrete systems have failed to reverse climate change and social injustice. At the same time the urgency and complexity of challenges can make us feel powerless and scared. This talk will explore what agencies design and fashion can have if directed at the level of paradigms, cultures and mindsets. Who can be a designer then, what practices can they adopt, who can they collaborate with and which performance indicators can they use? Mathilda Tham will draw on work straddling design, research, education and activism to explore how the field of metadesign and the perspective of Earth Logic can open up new thought and action spaces enabling every one in every place to make a difference
This talk is part of the Design Interrupted series organized by the Department of Design.
Agenda:
17:00 Opening words
17:10 Talk by Mathilda Tham
18:00 Panel discussion
18:50 Closing words
19:00 Event ends
Panelists:
- Mathilda Tham Professor in Design
- Guy Julier, Professor in Design Leadership
- Barbara Pollini, Assistant Professor in Biodesign Integration
- Ola Velure, student
About the speaker:
Dr. Mathilda Tham
Mathilda Tham's work developed uncompromisingly systemic and holistic approaches to sustainability – that is, connecting environmental issues with social justice and mental health, and connecting individual needs with global sustainability. Her field of work is called metadesign – design of change and ways of thinking, doing, being and telling stories within the boundaries of planet Earth. Mathilda Tham is Professor of Design at Linnaeus University and also affiliated with Goldsmiths, University of London.
She has co-created the visionary degree programmes Design + Change and Visual Communication + Change, Linnaeus University. Her research has resulted in: new ways to meet around the infected forest issue, new rituals to integrate different generations, a whole recipe book for living and resource management within Earth's limits, and new professional roles for designers. Her work is informed by feminist, decolonial, postgrowth perspectives, systems thinking and action research, and brings together artistic and scientific approaches. Mathilda Tham is co-author with Kate Fletcher of the Earth Logic Fashion Action Research Plan, which since its launch in February 2020 has reached over one million people globally, influence initiatives in policy, industry, media and activism, and has been translated into four languages. She is co-founder of the network Union of Concerned Researchers in Fashion, which drives systemic change in the global fashion sector.
Host:
Dr. Kirsi Niinimäki
Kirsi Niinimäki is a leading scholar in the field of sustainable fashion. She is a Professor in Aalto university where she leads a research group Fashion/Textile FUTURES. The research done in this group integrate closed loop, bio-economy and circular economy approaches in fashion and textile systems and extends the understanding of strategic sustainable design. In year 2022 Niinimäki was awarded with State’s Design Award from her international and impactfull research work.
Event Host
About the talk series:
Design Interrupted
Conversations for a 21st Century World
Today, the study and practice of design are in great flux. We are amidst the biggest socio-economic transformation since the 1750s, experiencing the fifth Industrial Revolution. There is a growing pressure to transition economies driven by extractive, wasteful and polluting logics towards systems designed to fit the planetary limits. Such transformation requires the design of new types of products and services, as well as new systems and approaches to large-scale changes.
At the same time, design as a practice area is also changing. It is shifting away from a more rigidly defined practice of professionally trained designers creating graphics, objects and spaces towards a practice that is loosely defined, fuzzy and seemingly omnipresent. Many have been calling for democratizing design and recognizing the efforts of non-professional designers. Design thinking, methods and practices have entered many contexts, including governance, jurisprudence, sciences and activism. The design community has been grappling with the ever-expanding definitions of what design is and who a designer is.
This talk series invites design professionals, students, academics and anyone interested in these challenges to a series of conversations. Each event features a scene-setting lecture by a leading practitioner and thinker followed by open discussion. Three themes give focus to the series: digital, societal and material transformations. What is design’s role in these transformations? How do we generate new know-how to support the needed transitions, and what examples already exist that we can learn from? What stands in the way of progress towards equitable, diverse, and sustainable lives, and what is the role of design in removing such blockages? What are design and designers in this new context?
Department of Design at Aalto University invites you to join our conversations to explore what design is, can and should be in the 21st Century.
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