Month: February 2020

As part of my own professional practice working with design studios and commercial clients, I am often constructing and drawing on frameworks as a way of building projects from the ground up, evaluating projects with other member of a team, as a means of constructing and applying meaning and developing new ways of framing existing projects. I’ve used frameworks both internally with teams, and externally when teaching outside of the academic context as a facilitator. Frameworks for me are lenses, ways of understanding and communicating from a shared point of understanding. They are points of negotiation and sites where testing, stretching and reaching of projects and work can happen.

It has been interesting to start the Learning for Sustainability unit and meet the diverse range of practices and teachers on the course. It is clear already that this is a very emotionally complex subject, and as teachers we are all feeling an immense responsibility to deliver sessions to our students that are meaningfully, and responsible whilst not underplaying the absolute emergency in which we are operating.

We each had to bring an example of what we felt was good practice in action in terms of sustainability. I was particularly interested in the 8 to Create framework bought in by a fellow student, which was developed by The Sustainable Angle and focused on designing with sustainable materials. Although I had heard many of the 8 ideas posited before, it was done so in a clear and accessible way.

The session then focused on the application of different frameworks in order to test and certify the sustainability of a project or idea. The frameworks used were derived it seemed from the fashion space. It is obvious that this most material and pervasive of industries should be leading the way in terms of its responsible engagement with the systems and production methods it employs, but it was clear from using at least 2 of these frameworks that these ways of thinking and interrogating your projects was cross disciplinary.

TEDs TEN

“Since 1996, TED has been developing and refining a set of sustainable design strategies for textile and fashion designers.

These strategies have emerged out of a need for a toolbox for designers to help them navigate the complexity of sustainability issues and to offer real ways for designing ‘better’.

While the environmental impacts of our production and consumption system have become increasingly discussed and brought to the fore, and textile/fashion designers have begun to consider their responsibilities as creators of unsustainable products and systems, there have been few tools or frameworks for designers to be pro-active.

We became frustrated by the lack of real action in light of these often depressing facts, and wanted to create some strategies for positive change. 

TEThese have now become The TEN and are continually changing and adapting. Please click on The TEN above to see the strategies” – http://www.tedresearch.net/teds-ten-aims/

Initially our group was tasked with using this framework in the exercise of designing an outdoor space for under utilised CSM roof. It was hard in the short session to interrogate our ideas, or indeed generate our ideas with touch points in all 10 strategies, so we focused on Design Activism…

Our idea became very immaterial and allowed for the space to be made a place by encouraging users to engage with a manifesto that would be collectively authored, but focused around a rehabilitation with nature. It is clear that even though this is specifically directed towards the fashion and textiles industry it clearly has reach across numerous disciplines and industries.

LIFE + DEATH TOOLKIT

“This toolkit was developed by Shibboleth Shechter and Tricia Austin in collaboration with MA Narrative Environments students.

The Life and Death Toolkit helps design students to reflect on the sustainability of their projects and make informed decisions throughout their design process. The toolkit consists of two sets of prompt cards and a worksheet. The prompt cards suggest topics to consider while the worksheet is used by students to record their reflections and evaluate the sustainability of their project.

The toolkit envisages design projects as part of a complex system or project ecology. It maintains that no project exists in isolation. It has been widely tested and well received by students.” – http://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/8217/

I was particularly impressed by this toolkit as it was so resolved and ultimately user friendly. It also intentionally functioned as a cross disciplinary frame work with which to interrogate projects and all stages of development.

FASHION FUTURES 2030

“Fashion Futures 2030 toolkit launched at Copenhagen Fashion Summit – an exciting new resource for industry leaders, educators and students.

Fashion Futures 2030 is an online toolkit designed to help educators, industry professionals and students engage in critical thought and discourse of fashion and nature through the exploration of four possible future scenarios. We have created tools and resources that explore different aspects of fashion futures with ways to incorporate them into your practice. By engaging with these future scenarios, fashion industry and education can develop visions, interventions and commitments to guide strategy for design, business and communication.

Fashion Futures 2030 toolkits are aimed at those teaching and working in fashion across a range of design, business and media roles and courses. The toolkit offers pathways for industry and educators which have been designed to be flexible enough to be planned and delivered as an hour-long ideation session, a one day workshop, or even a learning module.” – https://sustainable-fashion.com/projects/fashion-futures-2030-toolkit/

For me this was also a really powerful way of breaking through the usual discussion around sustainability. I respond really well to the idea of creative imaging as a tool to prompt alternative ways of being. If you can imagine it, it will become real. Think about the movements in feminist science fiction writing, or Afrofuturism. To break through, we must be able to imagine that something else is possible. As a thought experiment this is a great way to get students to really push, and would be incredibly useful to front load onto a project.

Thinking about my own students, we are always asking them to imagine what they will be doing in the future, be that in the short term… planning for their year in industry, or beyond that…. it will be important for the development of my workshop to ask them to imagine a future where the world isn’t as it is now. The jobs will not the be same as they will always be, who will our employers be? Who are we in service of? It will give me an opportunity also to do some imagining on their behalf. Also, it is interesting to note the connection between Tai Shani and her collective win of the Turner Prize 2019 in light of the collective imagining of a future of work and sustainable living for our students. https://elephant.art/why-we-need-art-collectives-now-more-than-ever/

The whole report (obviously) feels really focused on the systemic overhaul of university structures, but there is little on the direct effect on the student experience and impacts on their learning (the example of the permaculture club is a good one here). This doesn’t demonstrate that there needs to be high level executive backing for the genuine impact of sustainability within a university. The working together of the academic and corporate aspects of the institution.

This is evidenced in the U of Gloucester case study.

ESD is a vision of education that seeks to balance human and economic well-being with cultural traditions and respect for the earth’s natural resources. ESD applies transdisciplinary educational methods and approaches to develop an ethic for lifelong learning; fosters respect for human needs that are compatible with sustainable use of natural resources and the needs of the planet; and nurtures a sense of global solidarity. UNESCO Decade of ESD (DESD) 2005-2014 

Interesting to see the social and ecological used within the definition here

sustainability ideals serve as an educational impulse and a goal for the improvement of learning processes 

The unapologetic setting of ideals against this… it needs to be framed in this way

Critical pedagogies geared to futures and systems thinking, participatory and experiential learning, critical thinking, partnership working and values reflection, are all widely used in ESD

•  critical global perspectives
•  Inter-disciplinarity
•  focus on employability
•  ideals for integrated education

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bildung

The term Bildung also corresponds to the Humboldtian model of higher education from the work of Prussian philosopher and educational administrator Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835). Thus, in this context, the concept of education becomes a lifelong process of human development, rather than mere training in gaining certain external knowledge or skills

https://infed.org/mobi/a-brief-introduction-to-holistic-education/ – has a useful reading list too and introduction to what is meant by holistic education: education should be understood as the art of cultivating the moral, emotional, physical, psychological and spiritual dimensions

• Global Futures Perspective: as sustainability is ultimately an international concept, each initiative aimed to foster futures-oriented perspectives on the global situation, geared to improving equity of life chances and inter-generational justice worldwide. 
• Systems Orientation: each initiative recognised the complexities of the relationships within and between human and natural systems, often with strategies and principles to underline the importance of trans- and/or inter-disciplinary learning for sustainability. 
• Integrative Educational Ethos: the examples were underpinned by lifelong learning and development principles, addressing the integration of personal and professional life choices and capabilities, as well as the importance of innovation in educational systems.

This appears to be a good foundational framework to work within when developing ideas for delivery around this. It is clearly not subject/discipline dependant. – Does it suggest that we should do away with specialisms? What about what the ‘industry’ is insisting it needs. How does this develop ‘skills’ (annoying but a reality for our graduating students). Changing mindsets. 

embedding approach as key to progressing the sustainability agenda and discouraged the creation of new specialist courses

This is an interesting approach from U of Glouscester – these courses often feel like ‘add ons’ and very reactive, rather than there being a reappraisal of what is already there. Everyone should be encouraged and given the framework to explore sustainability within their unique specialism. 

“Those who are seeking to advance EfS in their institution need to find those opportunities, and key trends that are aligned to this agenda – so that you’re not opening new doors all the time. One needs to connect agendas whether that’s employability, active learning, work-focused learning, improving the overall student experience, and so on…” – effective change seems to happen in an organic way, rather than huge overhauls

I have waited a whole year to get into the Learning for Sustainability unit for my PGCert in Academic Practice. The ideas of sustainability are often seen as very material, but my work with students in the field of their professional practice at the Design School at LCC is a relatively immaterial approach. Through the unit I want to focus much more on the mindsets and cultures required for developing a sustainable approach to this subject. This will namely take the form of exploring collective ways of working as the foundations for sustainable work, living and beyond.

For me it seems strange to teach students about the importance of sustainability when we are preparing them to become participants in a global capitalist market place, which now universally acknowledged as requiring fundamental restructuring in order to begin to address the realities of the climate emergency and our reliance on the extractive processes of capitalism. The university’s emphasis on employability and increased links with industry often means that certain ideals of education (and in our case sustainability) are eventually subordinated to the contingencies of corporate capitalism. Employability is frequently promoted as increasing students’ personal capacities and capabilities in order to make them more likely to gain employment in their chosen careers. Through the emphasis on ‘self-enhancement’ and flexibility, students are promised security against unemployment. As such, employability becomes much more than skill development, and becomes a process of empowerment, it’s you against the world.

Remember it’s a jungle out there.

That jungle, the labor market as it stands, has not meaningfully evolved to address the environmental crisis, therefore the way we prepare (or empower) students to be at the heart of this evolution needs to apply to the delivery and frameworks used to teach professional practice.

The goal is to begin the process of empowering students to be agents of adaptive change by exploring dynamics of individual vs collective practice and presentation. These ideas still need to be refined in lots of ways to make it meaningful and useful in a workshop setting, but my thoughts are to create some exercises that are consciousness raising around the power of importance of a collective approach, but also that will have a direct practical implication. I am also keen to explore the social and political dimensions of sustainability (decolonising, recognising indigenous voices, precarity & politicised employability) beyond the ecological and material (though of course they are all enmeshed!) as the foundations for a sustainable approach, and explore students own cultural background and heritage as a way of exploring the sustainability agenda in professional practice.Here are some of the resources I’ve been looking at in case anyone is interested in this approach, and please do let me know if you have any thoughts or recommendations on further approaches and readings.

This has been really useful in term of practical exercises which explore unlearning institutions: https://www.valiz.nl/en/publications/unlearning-excercises.html from cleaning together to colour thinking.

This is very exciting political theory on the commons and life post capitalism: https://www.zedbooks.net/shop/book/omnia-sunt-communia/

I have been using this text with my students for the last year: http://joaap.org/press/pwb/PWB_TrainingForExploitation_smaller.pdf which gives teaching tools to explore the politicising of employability education and the culture of internships.

One of my students joint edited this really exciting publication from a students perspective about precarity and creative labour: https://theprecariatselfhelp.bigcartel.com/product/handbook

And I’m also really interested in the work of artist Rosalie Schweiker… http://rosalieschweiker.info/

About collaboration, kinship and solidarity with human and nonhuman beings…
https://www.dukeupress.edu/staying-with-the-trouble
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/donnaharaway

And have found the framing of the ecological crisis and mental health discussion by Timothy Morton really useful here (audio): https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000cl67/episodes/guide