Tara Campbell and Cheryl Hsu
David Suzuki Foundation | Independent
Facing 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.
KEYWORDS: transition design, systemic design, orthodoxies, well-being economies
