Blog Post 1 – Lecture Reflection – Empathy by Lorraine Gamman
In the first two weeks of the Better Lives unit, I listened to a variety of different lectures dealing with the better lives themes of diversity, sustainability and social responsibility. I have chosen to blog about is the Empathy lecture. The lecturer began by breaking down the definition of what empathy is. According to the lecturer, Empathy can be broken down into two components: “one being emotion, the other comes from our ability to understand other human beings’ emotions and perspectives that we may have not experienced ourselves.” By breaking down the definitions of empathy it helped me understand why it is an important tool in arts and culture. It made me realise how powerful it is to give people the opportunity to experience and understand different perspectives.
Artists and designers can create creative projects to help people understand how it feels to be deprived, vulnerable or at a disadvantage to someone who may have not experienced this. Big companies need to understand empathy to make sure they cater to all types of people. Designers are given unique opportunities to help people out. For example, many companies have created features to help people who are blind with their daily tasks. For example, Amazon Alexa can identify groceries for blind people. I think all companies need to consider this when coming out with new products and make sure they have catered and created features for all types of people.
Another topic discussed in the lecture was the link between empathy and fashion. As much as fashion is criticized in today’s media it can also be an opportunity for design to help people out or create a strong message. An example of this is an empathy belly which simulates a pregnant woman which can help fashion designers create clothes for them that helps them out during this time.
In conclusion, empathy is important to understand to be inclusive. By having empathy, you can think and understand how things affect all types of people. This lecture has made me realize how much more I should reflect on what other people are feeling/experiencing before creating. Overall, the Better Lives lectures have given me a lot of interesting information that I will continue to use in this unit and my future career.
References
Lorraine Gamman (2020) ‘ Empathy [Lecture]. Better Lives, London College of Fashion, 12 February.
JSTOR Daily. 2020. Can Art Help People Develop Empathy? | JSTOR Daily. [online] Available at: <https://daily.jstor.org/can-art-help-people-develop-empathy/> [Accessed 11 Febraury 2020].
Web.microsoftstream.com. 2020. Working…. [online] Available at: <https://web.microsoftstream.com/video/a04bc328-d043-47a9-b086-374112bb07c7?channelId=490f8d2f-85d4-4daa-9b6d-cdc70dfe01c6> [Accessed 11 February 2020].
11th May 2020 @ 11:29 am
I have chosen to peer review the blog post that was created by Annabel Jones, titled ‘Lecture reflection – Empathy by Lorraine Gamman.’ I do think that she has reflected fully reflected on the topics and themes of diversity, social responsibility and sustainability. Mainly the topics of social responsibility and diversity as her short essay is focused on being empathetic towards other people and how empathy can be used throughout fashion to create diverse products that are suitable for either specific or varied audiences of people who experience life in different ways. I think that to improve her essay she could have specified what exactly she will be using the information that she has learnt for, how will she use this information? Rather than just stating that this is what she plans to do in the future with her work both at university, and possibly in personal use as well. I am not sure she touched on the theme of sustainability in this essay, which I think she could have improved on by expanding her subject theme for the essay.