Empowerment - Designing with people, not for people !

Hello everyone!

It’s been a long time again, and over the period it’s been interesting to reflect upon literature. I am also being guided by David Goldsmith, PhD scholar at the Swedish school of textiles. It was on the 3rd of May, 18, on David’s recommendation, I attended the Seminar by Mugendi K. M’Rithaa (industrial designer, educator and researcher at Cape Peninsula University of Technology, South Africa), on ‘An African Perspective on Socially Conscious Design’, at the University of Gothenburg.

It was a sunny day, where I was looking forward for the seminar as a guiding tool towards driven efforts by IKEA as well, to collaborate with designers from Africa to create a collection portraying its cultural elements, which will come about with their collection in 2019.  The seminar was a careful focus, on narrative that is co-created within different areas of the continent, which weighs rich symbolism.

African circular patterns, as seen in the seminar

The proverb as seen in the seminar

Another interesting aspect was noticed, that after a certain number of presentation slides, it had proverbs from the African culture, which improved the dimensions of thinking. For example, as conveyed through the Zimbabwean proverb, ‘If you can talk you can sing, if you can walk you can dance’, it can be understood that the proverb enhances the ability, where the organization can keep the capabilities in extending its impact in the society on a social and cultural scale. Also, in the marketing context, the richness of proverbs, gives an effective platform for the upscale of skills through expressions. The realization of societal issues is realized through the crafted product, where crafted products bring the ability to narrate stories.

In the seminar, it was thus emphasized on immersive, speculative, discursive experiences in cross cultural contents. Designers sensibilities around change, based on the understanding of what they need, from the craft, to keep forward from the brand, is where the interesting part in collaboration lies, where designers play a vital role. Thus, the experience which retains expressions leads to a certain belief and trust towards the organization. 

Empowerment in general plays a role in the entire value chain, from artisans to designers. In the end, the crafted product should not only fulfil to the extent that its articulated cultural element and co creation can be shown to impact favorably the successful collaboration, but also through possible profitable outcomes, which facilitates future collaborations.

The challenging part is to now relate the knowledge, from the seminars and interviews to the literature review!