Editorial Equal Society

The Equity Dialogues: How can design support more equitable societies?

During this year’s edition of the Dutch Design Week, we will conduct an in-depth exploration into the lived experiences and perspectives of the people who designers create their work for. We look into complex contexts that feature multiple stakeholders with divergent values and interests, seeking to disclose and amplify a variety of perspectives and voices often underrepresented when it comes to shaping design discourse and practice. We do so by providing a platform for the words, imagery, metaphors and stories of those people who are most affected by the very societal issues and problems that designers are frequently expected to address or solve. By presenting projects that use various forms of storytelling as a way to share lived experiences, we investigate the different roles design(ers) can play in supporting more equitable societies. As such, we seek to challenge designer-user power asymmetries and promote inclusiveness.

“We look into complex contexts that feature multiple stakeholders with diverging values and interests, seeking to disclose and amplify a variety of perspectives and voices that are often underrepresented when it comes to shaping design discourse and practice.”

Laurens Kolks

At both the exhibition and the Equity Dialogues live event, visitors are invited to actively engage with the many different projects. These are presented in various formats, ranging from live demonstrations to video installations, and from playing a serious game to participating in a moderated panel discussion. This collection of projects unveils a variety of perspectives on the roles design can play regarding an “Equal Society,” or rather: how design can support more equitable societies. Instead of imagining a single homogenous society where all are equal, we investigate opportunities for moving towards societies where the needs of human beings and non-human lifeforms – in all their diversity – are met in harmonious and durable ways.

In A Growing Community Space, Yaro Berendsen examines the potential of urban agriculture to address social inequities and enhance community well-being in Milton, a deprived neighbourhood in Glasgow. In Rethinking Youth Participation in Policymaking, Susanna Osinga explores how to empower Rotterdam's youth so they feel recognized, in control, and ready to engage in local politics. Gijs van Leeuwen and Abhigyan Singh's project Voicing The Underrepresented Voices of Bijlmer’s Energy Transition discloses the tensions that emerge in relation to a local energy transition in Amsterdam South-East.

Building on design justice and feminist design, Remke Timmermans’ A Place Worth Living In examines how residents of Dutch asylum reception centres can be meaningfully engaged in co-designing the futures of these institutions. In Embodied Fitting of Workwear For Safety, Comfort and Inclusion, Svetlana Mironcika explores how workwear garment personalization can safeguard people with diverse body shapes. Marcello Persico, Marlieke Roest, Marlinde de Jonge, Michael Hobson and Nuria Bouhdid co-designed Easy-Up, a product that helps young children support their pregnant mother’s physical mobility and independence.

With the European Disability Act being introduced, what are paths to address it and contribute to an equal society? TU Delft's Inclusive Design Lab presents several learnings from their past five years of research into preferable paths that can contribute to more equal societies in  The Inclusive Design Experience - Misgivings and Paths. Bibiana Duarte-Abadía, Leontien Cremers and Daniele Tubino de Souza of the Moving Rivers initiative produced “Following the Voice of the People”. A film that amplifies the voices of river activists in Ecuador, Colombia, and India, that tell us how to live and coexist with rivers.

Seeking to defy asymmetrical power dynamics in design is a political minefield. People act and experiment in a realm full of ethical pitfalls, where the best of intentions not seldom support and/or reproduce the very power imbalances they claim to challenge. The columns by  Angeliki Balayannis and Cristina Zaga critically engage with these issues by exploring the limits of public participation, co-creation, and “social justice projects” through generative acts of refusal, resistance, and the process of becoming.