I have seen and heard about Arturo Escobar’s book Designs for the Pluriverse (2018) in different contexts and have been meaning to read it for a while. It has even popped up on several reading lists fort my students but I never got around to reading it. When I saw the introduction chapter on the Moodle resources for this PGCert it urged me again to read and I finally did.
Following my latest blog post it was a very interesting read, as Escobar (2018) outlines the rise and fall of design and calls for a more relational way of design thinking. He traces a history of critical design cultures and the emergence of a critique of dualisms from many different domains. This concept offers new ways of re-conceiving the world and the foundations for design. By acknowledging that with designing artefacts we are designing ways of being we can acknowledge the agency of the more-than-human, something I am very interested in, both in my own PhD research and in the publishing of a magazine with the title The Posthumanist.
“Might a new breed of designers come to be thought as transition activists?”
Arturo Escobar (2018)
Escobar also discussed different causes to the destruction of Mother Earth, may of which are rooted in design practice. The climate emergency is a core theme of UAL’s (2023) mission statement. The Climate Emergency Network(2023) is a university wide network of creative practitioners, a non-hierarchical network thinking about creativity’s role in addressing the existential crisis. Social and environmental sustainability is embedded in the curriculum (2023) and it is something I want to consider even more when planning for future sessions with students. I see Arturo Escobar’s book a suitable guideline to talk about design management.
Escobar, A. (2018) Designs for the Pluriverse. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
UAL (2023) ‘Sustainability at UAL’. Arts.ac.uk. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/about-ual/sustainability (Accessed 23 March 2023)
UAL a (2023) ‘Climate Emergency Network’. Arts.ac.uk. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/about-ual/sustainability/climate-community (Accessed 23 March 2023)
UAL b (2023) ‘Sustainable learning, teaching and research’ Arts.ac.uk. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/about-ual/sustainability/sustainable-learning-teaching-and-research (Accessed 23 March 2023)