Post 1: Impressions from the first lectures of Better lives

I´m not sure what I was expecting going into the Better Lives Unit, I think I was mostly curious about the live streamed lectures and what my mask-making course would be like in practice. Even though I read the summary of the unit before and flicked through the unit handbook I did not really think too hard about what the themes diversity, social responsibility and sustainability would mean to me throughout the unit. The very first lecture I attended was the one connected to the unit briefing which was Claire Swift giving an introduction to the theme Social Responsibility. She talked about a program for female inmates in the UK that were given a chance to learn a trade trough collaborating with designers, making a positive change. This story was moving but I can´t say it changed the way I think about working and social responsibility changed very much. Everybody knows there are injustices in the world and that there are people less fortunate than them but what makes a person actually commit to helping others and making a change? Hearing about other people doing good deeds can be inspiring but it does not necessarily make you actually do anything different yourself. It can even have an opposite effect if you can´t in any way relate to the people taking social responsibility and their motivation.

I believe that to truly inspire a person to want to make a positive change for other people, you need to shed light on seeing things from other perspectives than their own. To change the way a person works you need to change the way they think about their work and its meaning, all the way from the thought process to the way it is implemented in practice.  I think my reasoning about the first lecture made me appreciate the second lecture even more. The second lecture, which was right after the first one was held by Laura Salisbury and was titled Inclusion. Laura talked about being inclusive from a designer’s perspective and how using an inclusive way of thinking throughout the process could benefit everyone involved. She also highlighted the importance of looking at a problem or a task from different perspectives and the issues with not doing so. Most of her examples included new or emerging technologies, which made the lecture feel more relevant and current. Even though I´m not a designer myself, the way of thinking she spoke of intrigued me and has stuck with me since. I´m a person who can get stuck in my own head sometimes and I have not always put in an effort to see things from other people’s perspectives, but after that lecture I will feel more prompted to always take a second, more inclusive look at my work.