The project is based on the premise that future design practices will move beyond isolated fabrication, taking into consideration context, variation, and time, and becoming relational, sustainable, and responsive. The aim of this interactive project is to explore the possibilities for new modalities of practice.
The design community has been in a state of flux since the turn of the 21st century, questioning the role of design within the broader context of society. The purpose of this project is to explore the relation of design to democracy, new models of participatory design, and self-governance. Drawing on 'The Lancaster Care Charter', the proposed project discusses the role of the designer of the future, shifting away from a model of the “designer-as-hero” to the notion of designer as someone who cares to understand people, things, and situations while systematically taking an inclusive approach and keeping their design processes and products open and transparent.
The 'Engagencing' project puts engagement, agency and doing at the centre of design research. Agency is understood as the content inscribed in every individual, the immanence of possibilities. Care (as doing) is conceived of as the vigour to actualize the identified possibilities. Engagement is ability to implement the possibility and acts as a paradigm. The newly coined concept is a deliberate way of building a foundation for the rebirth of active participation by all individuals in society. Accordingly, the authors of the project reject the existing “democratic” system as it reduces social involvement to indirect participation in the processes of representative democracy.
The proposal focuses on creating fairer opportunities for the individual's direct involvement in, and contribution to society. Grassroots driven, it centres on providing space and creating the conditions for the emergence and viability of lasting emancipatory co-design practices. Making care the underlying principle of local participatory projects and practices can be seen as the core value of the project. In other words, 'engagencing' creates an interdependent three-way system (care-community-emancipation), which gains strength through active involvement, encourages agency, and acts as the cornerstone of the design of self-governance.
‘Engagencing’: The Design of Self-Governance is part of Design in an Age of Crisis online exhibition. The Design In an Age of Crisis Gallery features submissions to a global OPEN CALL issued in 2020 by Chatham House and London Design Biennale. l Authors: Tino Duralija, Deja Kofol, Jon Schwarzmann l Mentors: Barbara Predan, Jure Miklavc l Music: "Follow the Snow to the Sea" by Silence l Organised by the University of Ljubljana, Academy of Fine Arts and Design in collaboration with the Pekinpah Association l The project ‘Engagencing’: The Design of Self-Governance is supported by the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Pekinpah Association, and the City of Ljubljana.
