2) Reflection on themes and their future influence
Working in a creative field requires an open-minded, tolerant and spectrum-wide view of the world. While researching for my personal project in the Critical Design group I came across all the Better Lives themes and incorporated them in my practice. Critical Design wants you to explore and research a ‘wicked problem’ — which can be any social, technological or environmental issue that affects society and an individual person.
At the beginning I struggled to grasp the scope of this topic as it is very broad and can mean anything for anyone. I decided to take my time to think about which social issues really touch and/or affect me so that I could approach the project with a passionate and personal background.
The Better Lives theme ‘diversity’ seems to always call to me the most which led me to research different topics with diversity in mind. Diversity for me represents a broad and inclusive amount of different personalities and identities which differ in every aspect of life such as nationality, race, sexual orientation, gender, sex, religion and more.
Eventually, I decided to focus on gender, a central aspect of anyone’s identity. Here, I especially considered the role fashion plays in gender appearance and representation. Through our coinciding Cultural and Historical Studies, I learned that gender is a societal and cultural construct which changes depending on place and time. Fashion is a powerful tool which can help present and identify one’s gender appearance which in turn does not equal the biological sex of a person. Again, the themes of diversity, inclusivity and social responsibility appear and can be applied to the topic of gender and fashion.
Besides working on my Critical Design project, I was obviously affected by the current global problem around the Coronavirus, just like any other person. The situation forced me to move back to my family home in Germany and completely turn my work ethic on its head. While I wish for this virus to quickly pass and for everything to get back to ‘normal’ I learned what it truly means to be socially responsible. The situation requires every member of society to be aware, conscious and considerate of each other.
Being socially responsible means not leaving the house if it is not essential, practicing and following the hygiene routines and only buying considerate amounts of food. I never expected one of the Better Lives themes to have such a primal and important role in my life.
Ultimately, I suspect that this global problem will affect every person’s life in some way for a long time and that everyone will thus learn some form of lesson.
The importance of social responsibility is as present as ever and will hopefully follow me throughout my life continuing to encourage me to be kind to and considerate of people especially those who are vulnerable and underprivileged.