As our global society faces some of its toughest challenges to date with environmental issues, food crises, economic and political upheaval occurring in tandem, it is imperative to educate students in a manner that will prepare them to think critically and innovatively as well as collaboratively to meet the challenges that lie ahead. While classroom teaching and learning can be an elusive endeavor, difficult to define and measure, especially in the studio arts where class time is devoted to experiential learning: painting, drawing, sculpting and working hands-on with media; where students are urged to “discover the materials” and themselves, it is important here too, that educators consider the notion of building deeper connections to social context and responsibility inside the classroom. Ironically, if our goal is to prepare students to live responsible, creative lives within an ever-changing social context, we need to rethink the parameters of what we mean by “inside the classroom.” We need to build interdisciplinary bridges, and provide opportunities where immersive learning can take place. This too, may prove difficult to measure, but it is absolutely necessary for our survival as a society. As art and design educators, we are particularly aware of our student’s struggle with the dichotomy of entering the workforce to find themselves working to perpetuate an overly consumerist society while at the same time feeling the pressure of a burgeoning desire to be socially responsible, not just as individuals but also, and perhaps more importantly, in their work as well. This dilemma often reaches a crisis point in early designer’s lives when they find themselves feeling lucky to have landed an entry level position but designing products or brand identities that at best they do not believe in and at worst function to prolong the life of an unsustainable design market. Esteemed designer, Paul Rand, had no doubts about the intertwined roles of designer and market, “It is no secret that the real world in which the designer functions is not the world of art, but the world of buying and selling.”1 Rand also believed that it was a less than ideal practice to produce design solutions in great quantities rather than focus on quality, “It discourages spontaneity, encourages indifference and more often than not produces results which are neither distinguished, interesting, nor effective. In short, good ideas rarely come in bunches,”2 seeing the role of successful management as providers of an atmosphere that was conducive to the ‘less is more’ concept while fostering good communication and mutual understanding between designers, marketers and clients. Rand’s conditional acceptance of the relationship between art, design and consumer markets does not seem unusual for someone so familiar with the inner workings of the process of design, however, when compared with political scientist and distinguished professor, Timothy W. Luke’s view of a continuous cycle of the desire for more, this same acceptance can set off alarms. “Without the arts, ephermaculture could not endlessly refuel its unrelenting production of newer goods, trendier products, and fresher images, inasmuch as the commercial arts guide each individual’s recoding of his or her personal aspirations in terms of scientifically designed and organizationally produced material satisfactions . . . once this greed for power and possession develops, the commercialization of art in the design salons and artistic studios of every individual imagination mobilized by the market constantly stimulates individuals always to desire more.”3 Clearly, today, the desire for more is no longer acceptable in terms of the sustainability of our global environment, society and culture. While our institutions of higher learning are in the position of rethinking what it means to successfully educate students for the challenges ahead, they are also perhaps better prepared to initiate institutional change than the corporations they feed. Revisioning and re-imagining a paradigm shift is being undertaken at universities and community college campuses across our nation. The task seems daunting with many powerful built-in deterrents to change such as strong links between large corporations and grants funding research at the university level. Ultimately, change is taking place at a grass roots level with staff members and instructors along with their administrators attempting to look at and implement changes in meeting student needs while providing dynamic learning experiences. Witnessing the change process slowly take off at the community college where I work, it occurred to me that conventional policy makers may benefit from artists and designers familiarity with the design process, a time-proven method for implementing change and providing opportunities for creative solutions to emerge. In fact, I think designers and artists are uniquely situated to take part in the change process and provide solutions that will be not only be necessary, but imperative, in the next few decades. It is no longer possible for any of us, but particularly for artists and designers to remain aloof from a larger global process of paradigm shift as we look at our current crisis. Artist, art critic and cultural philosopher, Suzi Gablick states in Paradigm Spinning: Artists as Agents of Social Change, “it is time for artists to break the paradigm of the isolated, ‘crazy’ artist/genius and begin to operate in the world as they have always really done: agents of social change.”4 It could begin with actively learning and using the design process. This is a multi-step process used by artists and designers to arrive at the best possible solutions to visual and other communication problems. Sometimes the steps are labeled by different names, but essentially they encompass the same ideas: 1. Research 2. Thumbnails and/or Brainstorming Ideas 3. Roughs and 4. Comprehensives or Prototypes. This process lends itself to instilling critical thinking skills in students with the ability to recognize and define problems clearly, identify and gather pertinent information on all sides of an issue, perceive as many solutions as possible, breaking with the model of providing only one definite answer, while analyzing, reasoning and testing solutions in both critique and practical application. It also provides the ability to think carefully about the moral and ethical implications inherent in most dilemmas. The steps themselves are designed to build bridges between distinct areas involved in any design solution: the client or issue, audience or end user and the message or intent behind the design. The process begins broadly, looking at the issues, the people involved from users to those affected by the problem and all possible solutions. Final solutions are fine-tuned and tested before implementing change. While this process may not be unique to design or art, indeed, similar processes are used in engineering as well, Derek Bok, an American lawyer, educator and the former president of Harvard University states in his essay on “Our Underachieving Colleges” that these are the very qualities education needs to give rise to.
“Recent research suggests that certain familiar qualities of mind and habits of thought may help resolve such a wide range of problems that every student would benefit from acquiring them. Among these qualities are an ability to recognize and define problems clearly, to identify the arguments and interests on all sides of an issue, to gather relevant facts and appreciate their relevance, to perceive as many plausible solutions as possible, and to exercise good judgment in choosing the best of these alternatives after considering the evidence and using inference, analogy and other forms of ordinary reasoning to test the cogency of the arguments. These methods will not solve all problems; far from it. But they will solve many and clarify many more, enough to make proficiency in their use well worth the effort.”5
It is not difficult to imagine that concurrent issues of healthcare, global warming, social security and international relations could all perceivably benefit from an awareness of the design process approach utilized by great and soulful thinkers. In reference to design and aging, interactive designer, Whitney Quesenbery discusses “user centered” design in the article, The Politics of Design, stating that “designers should not merely be interpreters of the product requirements . . . but should be able to empathize with the audience or end user and imagine their work in context.”6 Site visits and direct observations of their designs in use are important for designers and for learning. When I was beginning my career as an art director for Weekly Reader Publications, the sheer quantity of newspaper design being worked on at any given time was often mind numbing. It was not until I took a classroom observation trip to witness first hand teachers using the product and my designs to instruct young readers that I began to see the full potential of designing for this young educational audience. I returned to my work with renewed enthusiasm and a greater appreciation of the efforts of the elementary educators who had appeared to be teacher, parent/guardian, role model, entertainer and creative thinker rolled into one. The more interesting my designs, the use of an unusual crop or exciting use of color– the more accessible the educator’s job became as the children were more inspired and motivated to look at, read and participate in discussion of the story in front of them. This important discovery later became part of my approach to teaching graphic designers at the community college level. Site visits before designing for a particular client, as well as afterwards, gleaned invaluable information for design students to see how well their designs not only met client’s needs but also inspired the users of their designs. In regards to building interactivity and partnerships between fine art practices and the viewer or “user,” Gablick suggests that Modernism and the notion of “art for art’s sake” isolates both art and the artist, feeding into the capitalist system of art functioning solely as commerce. I believe that art espousing aesthetic form however, can also have a spiritual purpose for society, as psychotherapist Thomas Moore, best known for his work in the field of archetypal and Jungian psychology, states in Gablick’s, Conversations Before the End of Time:
“Any art that arrests us, and does not lead us back into life with an opinion about it, is inviting us out and is performing a very important service. What it is giving us is an occasion for contemplation. We’ve lost the capacity, as a culture, for real contemplation. We do not contemplate easily––it feels like we’re not accomplishing anything when we contemplate. Now if we don’t have contemplation in our lives, we’re probably going to be going after it symptomatically––a lot of our spectating is like this.”7
An exciting notion that emerges from Gablick’s writings is the idea that new art can perhaps be both aesthetically spiritual and also functional on a social, cultural level, connecting with audiences instead of pushing them away. Moving away from object creation towards relationship building, one of the examples Gablick provides is artist Ciel Bergman, traditionally a painter who revisioned her work after questioning her role as an artist in today’s society. Gablick describes an installation piece by Bergman:
“ . . . She and her collaborator, sculptor Nancy Merrill, spent three hours a day for five weeks picking up all the nonbiodegradable plastic they could find (on the Santa Barbara beaches,) and then brought it into the gallery. Most of the plastic was hung from the ceiling, creating a contemporary Merzbau of sorts. The feeling inside the room was that of a temple, with sounds of the ocean, whales and seagulls drifting through from an audiotape. On the south wall, Bergman painted a black mural, a rich compost of grief, in which there were seven openings onto the sea and sky. The trash objects on the floor were covered in flour, which created a haunting, post-nuclear-explosion atmosphere, and in the center of the room was a firepit of ashes, which functioned as a circular prayer altar, in the manner of a Native American medicine wheel . . . Since the room was dimly lit, it took a while before people realized that what they were looking at was not art, but garbage. Visitors to the gallery were invited to write down their fears for the world on one of the remaining walls and their hopes on the other. A collection of sticks that had been picked up from the beach were left in a pile, along with other natural materials and some rice paper, with a further invitation to the audience to make prayer sticks. By the end of the exhibition, both walls had been covered with writing, and nearly four hundred people had written a prayer, hope or thought and attached it to a stick, which they decorated and placed in a ring around the ashpit.” 8
This is a beautiful example of the artist/designer going beyond the idea, expression and object, to connect and inspire an audience, or as phenomenological philosopher, Maurice Merleau-Ponty writes, “awaken the experiences that will make their idea take root in the consciousness of others.”9 If the goals of design and art include producing “usable” or effective products whether they are defined as objects or as relationships and are a means of embodying positive values that propel us forward as a society, then these goals can be compared to political goals. Politics in general has goals about values. A working definition of politics from wikipedia is “the process by which groups of people make decisions” and “social relations involving authority or power,” duly noted by Quesenbery, as well as Lenin’s, “politics decides who can do what to whom,” and political scientist Harold Lasswell’s statement, “politics is who gets what, when and how.”10 Design, art and politics therefore, are all concerned with setting or shaping preferences. While political theory looks at problems from the standpoint of systems, institutions and organizations, the design process asks questions at the beginning of the process (during the research and brainstorming stages) that can influence the overall outcome of the design and how it is used. Indeed, if the designer is not asking the appropriate questions at the start, the ultimate solution(s) will most likely not fit the needs of the client or the audience and the result is often at best, ineffective design and at worst, design that can confuse and even perpetuate negative stereotypes. The audience or user ideally is the designer and artist’s collaborator, enabling design to function as an extremely powerful tool that can inform and shape behavior. Some critics such as Kevin McCullagh, further suggest that design is “social engineering,”11 when operating at the behest of policy makers. He states, “a growing number of young designers have rejected aesthetic concerns in favour of adopting strident moral stances on issues such as sustainability, public health and transport . . . however, a line has been crossed: rather than considering how an object might affect behaviours, designers are now looking at behaviour as being the object of the design process.” 12 If the process triggers positive, revolutionary change however, it might well be worth it to consider client, consumer and user behaviors at the outset, and may not necessarily have negative connotations or “Big Brotherism” automatically implied. One has only to look towards the multitude of protest posters, historic and contemporary, to witness the power of design to promote positive social change and impact human behaviors. An outstanding example continues to be the My Lai protest poster shown below:
–from John Emerson’s Social Design Notes blog at http://www.backspace.com
The poster was used by the Art Workers’ Coalition (AWC,) a coalition of artists, filmmakers, writers, critics, and museum staff that formed in New York City in 1969. AWC’s aim was to pressure the city’s museums into implementing reforms, including a more open and less exclusive exhibition policy concerning women artists and artists of color. The coalition successfully pressured MoMA and other museums into implementing a free admission day that still exists today. It also pressured and picketed museums into taking a moral stance on the Vietnam War, which resulted in the famous My Lai poster, one of the most important works of political art of the early 1970s. The poster was displayed during demonstrations in front of Pablo Picasso’s Guernica at the MoMA in 1970.13
Of course, the same inherent power of design to control and shape behavior has been put to extreme negative use when wielded in the hands of dictators such as Hitler and the Nazi propaganda machine.
Germany lives! – From sometime in the 1930s (Crestock.com blog)
Jennie Winhall, senior design strategist for RED, a ‘do tank’ within the UK Design Council that develops innovative thinking and practice on social and economic problems through design, notes in her article Is Design Political? that the most overt use of design as political object occurs in “symbols, logos, political organizations and national identities.”14 The Nazi swastika symbol utilizes an ancient Christian mark of a backward cross15 and has become one of the most feared and rebuked icons of our time because of its associated meanings with ethnic cleansing and the Holocaust. Many other politically motivated symbols of the 20th century have acquired positive connotations for social change however, including the red AIDS ribbon and the Rainbow Coalition symbol for Gay Rights/Pride, as well as the more recent development of color wrist bands, and the “One” white wrist bands for fighting extreme poverty and world hunger. In fact, the use of color in wearable form has become an act of protest or solidarity in and of itself. “Color associated with political activism was certainly given a huge boost by all that orange we saw in the dramatic uprising in Ukraine (November, 2004.) ‘Those thousands of people in Ukraine wearing orange didn’t even have to open their mouths,’ said Leatrice Eiseman, director of the Pantone Color Institute. ‘You knew what they stood for.’”16 We do not need to leave the United States though in order to associate color with politics. Just look at the ‘red’ and ‘blue’ states dividing America. Designer, writer, and educator, Katherine McCoy states “Design is not a neutral, value free process.”17 Design can exclude. It can dictate, saturate and promote harmful code as NYU Professor of Sociology, Steven Lukes notes in the same article, “it can reinforce the maleness of power tools.”18 “Real world” politics and design can also intersect with sometimes disastrous results as in the Florida 2000 presidential election and the now infamous butterfly ballot. The butterfly ballot design was not a computer error. It was poor information design. It is also an example that good intentions are not enough in the design process. Using large type for senior readers was an admirable design decision but seniors should have been brought into the design process in order to work through the readability problems on the ballot. In this sense, the design process was not understood to be a democratic process, inviting participation from ordinary people, lending a voice to the user who should have been able to influence the outcome of the design. Similarly, we need to begin to recognize that issues of chronic healthcare, climate change and aging are all opportunities that can be approached through a collaborative and user-friendly design process.19 Examples such as butterfly ballots and propaganda designs beg the question of whether designers and artists are ultimately responsible for the consequences of their designs. From a historical perspective it seems reasonable and just to hold artists such as Leni Riefenstahl, accountable for the 1934 German propaganda film, Triumph of the Will, and many historians, critics and citizens have judged it so. It is perhaps more difficult to discern social responsibility in the present moment. Many theorists acknowledge that the world would surely be a different kind of place if the power of design and artistic expression were put to positive use in addressing some of the prominent issues of today. Author and speaker, John Naisbitt notes Luciano Benetton’s Italian fashion company and their use of advertising not just to promote product, but also to promote a positive social message regarding race in their “United Colors of Benetton’s” ad campaign. “In 1984 . . . Olivero Toscani presented youthful images from culturally diverse nations. The varying colors of the Benetton collection linked with the diverse “colors” of its worldwide customers. With young people engaged in a variety of playful acts, Toscani presented a theme of racial harmony and world peace. It became the inspirational trademark still used today: ‘United Colors of Benetton.’”20 Toscani headed Benetton’s campaigns until the year 2000, using images to speak across cultural boundaries, raise social awareness and communicate globally a message that promoted company values while selling fashion products. Corporate bottom lines and world markets do play a role in the relationships between art, design and social politics. More often than not, the results can be poor customer service and unsustainable design solutions running amok. Adbusters magazine deconstructs these relationships in their July/August 2008 issue and the article, I, Designer, reprinting Stuart Ewen’s ‘Note for the New Millennium,’ from ID: International Design, March/April 1990 issue. Ewen remarks,
“ . . .Design is useful as an instrument for glorifying corporate power. In a global economy, where ownership and wealth operate on a transnational level, designers and other image-doctors celebrate and aestheticize colossal institutions that are for the most part entirely unresponsive to the needs of the broader human community . . . Designers must come to reflect upon the functions they serve, and on the potentially hazardous implications of those functions. In the 1930s Walter Benjamin wrote that humankind’s ‘self-alienation has reached such a degree that it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order.’ When we consider the ways in which design serves to aestheticize and validate waste, anti-democratic forms of power and the primacy of surface over substance, Benjamin’s words can only give us pause.” 21
Almost twenty years from the original 1990 publication date we may still be in ‘pause’ mode, but we can hardly afford to stay there.
Art and design students need to experience the design process as a democratic, participatory practice. Some design outcomes will reflect that practice while others will impose rigid outcomes upon their users by the very nature of their design. We can see this in the 1980 article, Do Artifacts Have Politics by Langdon Winner. Winner writes eloquently on the debate of whether technologies or ‘artifacts’ as he calls them, can have political properties, whether they can change the use of power and the human experience. He notes, “At first glance . . .we all know that people have politics, things do not.”22 Winner continues, acknowledging the complex and interdependent relationship of designed technologies and social context, in which there are two kinds of political properties designs can manifest. The first are designed solutions that fulfill the needs of a particular community, often remaining fairly flexible in their implementation and sometimes even afterwards. The second are designs that are inherently political, or “having power in the arrangements and associations of people.”23 The latter kinds of designs can be used in ways that enhance the authority of some over others, for example, the designed presentation of a political candidate on television and the Internet to promote that candidate. Studying the perception and meaning of the arrangements of these designs is crucial to the development and understanding of the power of design to influence many.
Indeed, designs, whether informational, industrial, editorial or promotional are ways of ordering or structuring information. There are many possibilities for different ways of ordering that information in connection to human activity. We can choose structures that will influence how people work, communicate, travel and consume. In the design process by which we decide the structuring of information, there can be unequal degrees of power for different users as well as unequal levels of awareness brought to bear by designers, themselves. Sometimes the smallest changes to a design can have the utmost impact on the end users. Winner outlines the advent of the mechanical tomato harvester in the1940’s California agriculture business and the small but powerful addition of the ability to sort tomatoes as they are harvested, affectively eliminating hand harvesting altogether, resulting in the loss of jobs and farms as well as the breeding of new, hardier and less tasty varieties of tomatoes to accommodate mechanization. Although the University of California’s research and development of the agricultural machines was the subject of a lawsuit brought by a group of farm workers charging that university officials were spending tax monies on projects that benefited a handful of private interests, while injuring small farmers, workers and consumers, the university successfully denied the charges. A pattern of scientific research, design and corporate profit bound with political and economic power remained in place.24 Perhaps more alarmingly, if American big business recognizes a centralized model (non-democratic) as the desirable method for doing business it may prove increasingly difficult to use democratic processes in problem solving or introduce decentralized systems such as wind and solar power over nuclear power, a necessarily highly centralized and hierarchically controlled system.25 “If you accept nuclear power . . . you also accept a techno-scientific-industrial elite to control it.” 26
The entangled relationships of corporate, economic, political and educational institutions wrapped in a paradigm which may no longer benefit the larger society can be seen perhaps as partly responsible for the slow response to the crucial issues of our time. To add to the dilemma of educating young designers and artists, until recently, most schools were designed and built on a 1950’s model, with rows of students behind desks and teachers in front of the class lecturing. Standing in front of a classroom one quickly realizes that this traditional model of seating does not foster open-ended discussions and creative exercises that are part of a strong design classroom today and ironically, in the workplace, students have to quickly adjust to a teamwork ethic. With the advent and broader use of computer technology in instruction, smart services like wikis and blogs, a less hierarchal approach is opening up with “student centered” learning replacing the conventional model. Schools and curriculum design are still catching up with creative group spaces designed to better suit the learning needs of a diverse group of learning styles. Older spaces are being redesigned for a mix of group and individual work, desk work, role play and the addition of new types of furniture allowing for greater accessibility and flexibility.27 As Foucault states, “The spaces we inhabit, the tools we use, the systems we interact with are all mediated by design . . . design operates as part of that power.”28
Moreover, the teaching of social responsibility without imposing or indoctrinating students to one particular ideology or political view becomes increasingly crucial. “We need to make sure we’re using design for social justice,” says Hilary Cottam, Director of RED@UK Design Council.29 Yet, questions arise as to how and what positive values can be can be approached in the classroom. According to Bok, “The educator needs to provide opportunities, experiences and goals with which no reasonable person is likely to disagree.”30 Important questions for students and instructors alike are “How do we value what we value?” And “Who decides?” Sounds familiarly like the definition of politics. Plenty of examples can and should be provided for students such as: Apple values software and creativity. And less obviously, they value the invisible. MIT’s open studio system teaches economics and mathematics in the context of art. There is a recognition and a value of art as business in this context.31 And corporations like Ikea, Swatch, Mont Blanc, Apple and Nokia that sell world wide using designs that do not need to be adapted to different cultures, because they are imbued with functionality and feeling can provide rich examples for analyzation.
American cultural critic and founding theorist of critical pedagogy, Dr. Henry Giroux writes, “ Pedagogical practices informed by ethical stance that contests racism, sexism, class exploitation and other dehumanizing exploitive social relations . . . (are) part of an ongoing struggle to link citizenship to the notion of a democratic public community, civic courage to a shared conception of social justice.”32 One would think that this fits Bok’s view of providing opportunities with which “no reasonable person could disagree,” and it does, until the view becomes too specific regarding the process of social change. While no one can predict the future with any great specificity, the same is true in teaching and learning. The challenge is to lay the foundation of understanding, to help students to respond and adapt effectively to new situations and problems while recognizing and taking advantage of opportunities which present themselves for further exploration. Inspiring students, nurturing imagination and creativity while developing judgment, critical and analyzation skills require both work in the classroom and outside fieldwork.
It is imperative that sophisticated responses from motivated and engaged students rise to meet the onslaught of complex issues of our time. Bok cites a 1990 national study finding that 28 percent of college students were “wholly disengaged from the life of the institutions (they attended) or were deeply involved in social and extracurricular activities at the expense of coursework.”33 The implications for the educator are clearly those of competition. Competing for the attention and desire of students to be fully present and aware, prepared to work, can wear down even the most talented instructors. Factor in other distractions such as IPods, cell phones, and video games and the task can seem daunting. Embracing the student(s) where they are, technological distractions and all, moving them forward with the incorporation of what matters to students into the coursework, is an alternative. A successful educator must be willing to try a variety of techniques such as onsite, hands-on collaborative exercises, interdisciplinary projects, group work and active problem-solving discussions, continuously reinforcing, complimenting and building upon existing student knowledge and frameworks. For the most part this requires getting to know one’s students on a deeper level. It requires conversations with students and attentive listening on the part of the instructor. The rewards can be great. As artist and educator, Beverly Naidus comments in The Reenchantment of Art, “ . . . my students are all looking for something beyond the courses on how to produce slide portfolios and how to market your work. They’re looking for role models for an art which talks about what’s happening in the world rather than being obsessed with making innovative creative statements.”34
Every student is unique, and each will be interested in connecting to a larger social context in varying degrees, some minimally if at all. Modeling behavior, expressing enthusiasm and providing plenty of examples of contemporary artists and designers working for different kinds of positive social change is important. Luckily, today, we are beginning to see a “tipping point” in progressive thinking especially regarding green technologies and sustainability. Artists, designers, politicians, social scientists, activists and every day citizens are beginning to attempt change in relation to “going green.” This is particularly exciting for teaching because examples like the thomas.matthews: “ten ways design can fight climate change” brochure/manifesto are readily available providing excellent examples for active learning discussions. Sophie Thomas, cofounder of the London based thomas.matthews studio, which has made design’s sustainability the fundamental philosophy behind it’s projects was interviewed as an Icograda Design Week conference presenter, remarking, “There are a number of ways that graphic design can physically reduce its impact on the environment. A designer must get to understand their ‘sphere of influence.’ A graphic designer sits in the middle between the client, the audience or consumer and their suppliers. We need to look at each group and work out what influence and what impact we have in order to know where we can change.” 35
Diagram from thomas.matthews, Ten ways design can fight climate change
Active learning discussions in the classroom can pose the question of designer influence and impact on environment. Students can work in small groups to discuss the problem and offer their own solutions, analyzing and challenging each other while comparing their responses to Thomas’s “10 things.” Reflection on their reasoning can take place on student blogs and wikis providing interactivity as well. Students who engage in the use of “real” concepts and examples to solve actual problems tend to remember information because it is connected conceptually and socially across new situations, building new narratives. Robert Kegen, The William and Miriam Meehan Professor in Adult Learning and Professional Development at Harvard University, Educational Chair for the Institute for Management and Leadership in Education, Co-director for the Change Leadership Group and author of The Evolving Self, refers to these kinds of activities as “creating a bridging environment to the real-life world.”36 Kegen also recommends allowing for student self direction, permitting students to take the initiative, set goals, refer to experts and other resources while taking responsibility for the direction of their learning. In this manner students can be seen as “co-creators of culture rather than just being shaped by it.”37 Other models for classroom learning in this area abound with designers like Bruce Mau, a well-known Toronto based product designer and the launch of “The Massive Change Project,” which brings together members of the international design community through a traveling art exhibit, book, website, and online community and a future documentary film. “Engineered as an international discursive project, Massive Change: The Future of Global Design, will map the new capacity, power and promise of design.”38 Locally, “Beyond Green, Toward a Sustainable Art” could be viewed at the University of Hartford, Joseloff Gallery this past spring where thirteen artists and design groups showed their work incorporating sustainable thinking and social change. The work can be viewed online at http://www.joseloffgallery.org and blog. Eco-architect William McDonough, also a member of Massive Change, known for his work building sustainable factories for corporations like Herman Miller and Ford Motor Company popularized the theory of “‘cradle to cradle’ in which waste is converted into energy and new materials, and pollution becomes nonexistent.”39 He is currently working with rural areas of China with this concept for energy creation. Awareness of professional designers and artists working for positive change is terribly important in providing a catalyst to student thinking, so that they can also move beyond paralysis and despair, generating innovative ideas of their own when tackling such large issues as the impact of art and design on global climate. My contributions as an artist, designer, educator and agent for social change both inside and outside the classroom include collaborating with Professor Lucy Anne Hurston’s Sociology 100: Community Involvement Class with Relief Work in New Orleans in 2007. As a graphic design educator, one of my primary goals is to provide learning experiences that encourage students to connect with their context and build a sense of social responsibility into their work. For many of my students it was their first exposure to the idea that graphic design can have such powerful social, political and cultural impact. My Graphic Design I class essentially treated the Sociology class and Professor Hurston as “clients” in an effort to design a t-shirt for members of the class to wear while working in New Orleans. Graphic design students were given project parameters such as format and possible color choices for screen-printing on sweatshop-free cotton shirts. The inclusion of the Habitat for Humanity logo and Manchester Community College logo as well as a slogan, “No Matter How Long it Takes . . .” was to be part of the design. Fifteen students engaged in the design process of producing thumbnails, roughs and final comprehensives. Their designs were presented to Professor Hurston and a final design was chosen. Through the course of the design process, some of my graphic design students were inspired to enroll in the Sociology 100 class and participate in the rebuilding effort in New Orleans. I also participated, creating a video documentary of the class work before, during and after the trip. (I teach Digital Video Editing at Manchester Community College as well, and have a background in producing and editing for public television.) It was my intention to document the trip and edit the footage into a movie that detailed the student’s experiences as they worked to rebuild devastated areas of New Orleans. I was aware that the trip would be an emotional process and in some cases a life-changing event. I wanted to bear witness to that experience and provide a document for the students and the larger college community upon returning for both instructive and inspirational purposes. Ultimately, my involvement and collaboration with Professor Lucy Anne Hurston’s class included taping the first class introductions, two retreats, a week in New Orleans and final class presentations. Twenty-two hours of footage from three camcorders was captured and edited down into a two-hour movie detailing worksites, tours and class experiences. Students on the trip became camera operators on the tours, gathering information, as they were encouraged to document their experiences as part of the course work. Upon return to Connecticut, many of the class members contributed their still photographs to the movie and three students recorded their own music for part of the soundtrack. In October 2007, we held an MCC-NOLA movie premiere for the students where they received copies of the DVD. The editing process had taken approximately three months. I also designed a poster and program for the premiere event. The bond that was created between students, faculty, staff and members of the New Orleans community will last a life time and the impact on the design students who engaged in the process of seeing their work effect positive change within a community in need was tremendous for all involved. Other “hands on” learning projects include an award winning video on Community Health Care Centers in Connecticut and more recently the premiere issue of the paperless MCC Sustainability Newsletter distributed in an electronic format, highlighting ongoing sustainability initiatives at MCC, particularly the college president’s signing of the American College & University Presidents’ commitment to climate change, Earth Day events and the MCC Farmer’s Market. Currently, students are involved with contributing to and working on a video loop that documents some of the initiatives on campus pertaining to sustainability. Difficulties in utilizing active learning techniques in course curriculum can arise from cost, depending on the scope of the project. Active learning can also be a messy endeavor because learning opportunities are loosely structured around current events, projects and examples of experts in the field and the unexpected can happen. This kind of learning takes time for students to process what they are being exposed to. But mostly, students are highly engaged when taking part in this kind of learning process. Working across disciplines forces people to think outside of the box, losing their sense of isolation and gaining a sense of interdependence as well. As we make room to take our students outside of the classroom into the world whether through the use of the internet as a tool or through hands-on immersion in real world environments, we are providing thinkers with learning opportunities which will come back to us all, in time. Our global community benefits as students become active members of their communities, able to fully grapple with the issues at hand from a rich and diverse perspective of experiences. William G. Tierney, Director of the Center for Higher Education Policy Analysis and Wilbur-Kieffer Professor of Higher Education at the Rossier School of Education writes about ‘symbolic analysts’ in the essay, Building the Responsive Campus, Creating High Performance Colleges and Universities.
“Those individuals who are ‘symbolic analysts’ or knowledge workers will have increased importance in a global economy. Symbolic analysts identify and solve problems by manipulation of images, critical thinking, abstraction, innovation and collaboration . . . rather than isolating him/herself in a community of like-minded individuals, the symbolic analyst seeks to understand how difference operates in any number of forums– culturally, logically, economically.”40
Successfully educated art and design students should be able to operate at the level of ‘symbolic analyst’ described by Tierney.
Graphic design in particular, has been defined as a form of visual communication, (often using symbols,) which carries an implicit message to an intended audience. Perhaps, the time has come to add to this definition the need for that message to effect positive social change, even if the form it takes is unconventional as in the “ad campaigns” of the Guerrilla Girls, a group of radical feminist artists established in New York City in 1985, known for using guerrilla art to promote women and people of color in the arts.41
Historically, artists and designers have worked to effect social change, from within the art and commercial design fields as well as without. The 1970’s and 80’s saw artists of the caliber of Judith Barry, Hans Haacke, Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, and Joseph Bueys to name a few, working to subvert and alter the nature of corporate power and consumerist practices through powerful messages latent in their artwork. Luke urges designers and artists to recognize the “tremendous opportunities to challenge the symbolic essences of late capitalism, questioning both the media and the messages that the hyperecology of late capitalism uses to integrate individuals and society to its reproduction . . . First, those artists working immediately within the industrial design and consciousness-management segments of industry might attack from within the codes of consumption, doubting and disparaging the desires they encode in consumer goods for others to need. . . to do this as well as keep their jobs and continue at their crafts, artists must embrace new values consonant with a permacultural, ecological way of life. Rather than stimulating individual desires for the flimsy, the superfluous, and the trendy, artists must identify new, environmentally sensible values––durability, utility, and permanence––in their works and designs. By linking artistic practices with a general cultural awakening to the critical importance of ecological values and by embracing values of ecological sustainability, artists can help to begin revolutionizing the present system from within their vocations and crafts.”42
Whether we are working within the system, embracing corporate sponsorship as the new patron of the arts, as architect and designer Peter Marino asks, “When the great Renaissance painters did the Medici chapels, were they selling out?” and answered, “No, that’s what lasts. We don’t have popes commissioning art anymore; we have big corporations,”43 or fighting from without, as the world rapidly changes around us, we can choose as artists and designers to embody a role of effecting positive change. It may not be enough anymore to simply educate and help our students find their way into internships or other work. We may also need to nurture them through a process of finding their own voice, even while working within the established corporate structures. For some, an example like designer Shepard Fairey may prove to be inspirational as he used new and existing marketing structures to essentially build his own brand, and is now using that brand for social awareness and impact with the design of posters for political change in the U.S. and Darfur. Modeling, providing examples, building partnerships, networking, performing pro bono work for causes that have social and/or environmental impact, while refocusing student’s independence towards a method for interdependence and sustainability are increasingly important. Those of us who are in the business of educating must remember we are “training creative spirits.”44 Our goal is to release our students in the end back into their communities fully prepared to unleash the powerful, positive potential of the art and design process within their lives and those they touch.
“Art may not change anything, but the ideas we have about ourselves we project into the world . . .Negative images have a way of coming alive just as positive images have. If we project images of beauty, hope, healing, courage, survival, cooperation, interrelatedness, serenity, imagination and harmony, this will have a positive effect. Imagine what artists could do if they became committed to the long-term good of the planet. The possibilities are beyond imagination. If all artists would ever pull together for the survival of human kind, it would be a power such as the world has never known.”– Artist, Ciel Bergman, “The Reenchantment of Art”45
“It’s when you believe in something, when you stand for something, when you put forth not a symbol, but a piece of yourself– that’s when the sparks begin to fly. Rodchenko, Heartfield, Kalman– they were more than designers. They were the life, the blood and the voice of their struggles– completely immersed in the burning issues of their day. They didn’t depict culture, they were culture. To push the boundaries of global culture in a fresh way, you have to do more than just design, you have to LIVE.”– Adbusters July/Aug. 200846
“She is more in tune with the changing technical world than most artists who have yet to realize the power of this tool, (note the Barack Obama surge in the political sphere due to tapping into the younger generation’s savvy with the Internet) and continue to stick to antiquated materials and methods of making art. We don’t use chisels anymore, to chip at large pieces of marble. We don’t draw still lifes. Nothing is still in this life anymore; the computer is denying that for us. The communicating of ideas and images is done instantaneously . . .”– artist and teacher, Laurann Szpak, thoughts on her 70+ year old mother using the computer to draw, design and sell artwork.47
“And if I re-phrase this question: Can graphic design actually save the world? No, but saving the world needs everyone to understand the situation, be empowered by the knowledge and demand the solutions. Graphic design can be the agent for change and the disseminator of that knowledge, a powerful and important place to be.”–Interview, Designer and co-founder of communication design agency, thomas.matthews, Sophie Thomas.48
Footnotes
1. Paul Rand, A Designer’s Art, Paul Rand, 1985
2. Ibid.
3. Timothy W. Luke, “Art and the Environmental Crisis, From Commodity Aesthetics to Ecology Aesthetics,” Colloquium of Artists Concerned about the Environment, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and Sate University, (March 1990) and Art Journal, College Art Association, Vol. 51, No. 2, Art and Ecology (Summer 1992) pp. 72-73
4. Suzi Gablick, “Paradigm Spinning: Artists as Agents of Social Change,” Arts in Education Program’s John Laudrum Bryant Lecture Performance Series http://forum.wgbh.org/wgbh/partners.php#HarvardGraduateSchoolofEducation
5. Derek Bok, Our Underachieving Colleges, A Candid Look at How Much Students Learn and Why They Should be Learning More, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, p. 68
6. Whitney Quesenbery, “The Politics of Design,” Aging by Design, Bentley College/AARP, (September 28, 2004)
7. Suzi Gablick, Conversations Before the End of Time, Dialogues on Art, Life and Spiritual Renewal, Thames and Hudson, New York, NY, (1995) p. 407
8. Suzi Gablick, The Reenchantment of Art, Thames and Hudson, New York, NY, (1991) pp. 153-4
9. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, “Cezanne’s Doubt,” Sense and Non-Sense, (1964 translation) pp. 9-24 and Basic Writings, Vol. 1 Part 7, Routledge, UK (Dec. 2003) pp. 272-290
10. Quesenbery, “The Politics of Design” Aging by Design (2004)
11. Dan Lockton, Architectures of Control, Design with Intent, http://www.architectures.danlockton.co.uk
12. Kevin McCullagh, “Putting People First: Transformation Design, The Re-emergence of Social Engineering in Public Service Design,” Blueprint, (October 2007)
13. http://www.wikipedia.org and Victor Margolin, Rebellion, Reform and Revolution: American Graphic Design for Social Change, from Jon Emerson’s blogsite: http://www.backspace.com
14. Jennie Winhall, “Is Design Political?” Core77 Industrial Design Supersite, http://www.core77.com/reator/03.06
15. Juan Eduardo C. Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols, (2002) p. 70
16. John Naisbitt, “ A Visual Culture is Taking Over the World,” Mind Set! Harper Collins, (2006,) p.152
17. Winhall, “Is Design Political?” Core77 Industrial Design Supersite, p. 5
18. Ibid., pp. 4-5
19. Quesenbery, “The Politics of Design” Aging by Design (2004) pp.11-12
20. John Naisbitt, “ A Visual Culture is Taking Over the World,” Mind Set! p.121
21. Stuart Ewen, “Note for the New Millenium,” ID International Design, March/April, (1990) and reprinted “I, Designer,” Adbusters July/August (2008)
22. Langdon Winner, “Do Artifacts Have Politics?” The Whale and the Reader: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology, University of Chicago Press, Chicago (1986) pp.19-39. The essay first appeared in Daedalus 109 (1980) pp. 121-136 ––posted on http://www.backspace.com
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid., Notes 9-14
25. Ibid., Note 21
26. Ibid., Note 20
27. Winhall, “Is Design Political?” Core77 Industrial Design Supersite, p. 3
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid., p. 4
30. Bok, Our Underachieving Colleges, A Candid Look at How Much Students Learn and Why They Should be Learning More, p.65
31. John Maeda, Design by Politics an Interview with John Maeda, http://www.pohflepp.com/maeda.html pp. 3 and 5
32. In Darryl J. Glass and Barbara H. Smith (eds.), The Politics of Liberal Education (1992), pp.128, 135; Derek Bok, Our Underachieving Colleges, p. 62
33. Derek Bok, Our Underachieving Colleges, p. 112
34. Gablick, The Reenchantment of Art, (1991) p.162
35. Sophie Thomas, “When Graphic Design is Sustainable, Interview with Sophie Thomas,” Aiap organized Icograda Design Week Conference Interview, http://www.backspace.com
36. Robert Kegan, In Over Our Heads, The Mental Demands of Modern Life, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, pp. 293-294
37. Ibid., Gerald Grow, p.274
39. Maura R. O’Connor, “Designing Utopia,” Enlightenment, March-May (2006)
40. William G. Tierney, Building the Responsive Campus, Creating High Performance Colleges and Universities, p.7
42. Timothy W. Luke, “Art and the Environmental Crisis,” Art Journal, (Summer 1992,) pp.74-75
43. John Naisbitt, “A Visual Culture is Taking Over the World,” Mind Set!,
p. 137
44. Richard Harden, “Ethiopia, Kosovo, Palestine, Sudan, Manchester,” Entering the Community, Essays and Experiences, Manchester Community College, James Gentile and Patrick Sullivan, (eds.) Manchester Community College, Manchester, CT (2008) p. 109
45. Gablick, The Reenchantment of Art, (1991) p.155
46. “I, Designer,” Adbusters July/August (2008)
47. Laurann Szpak, correspondence from Goshen, CT
48. Sophie Thomas, “When Graphic Design is Sustainable, Interview with Sophie Thomas,” Aiap organized Icograda Design Week Conference Interview, http://www.backspace.com
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