What were my goals for this curriculum lab experience?
The goals were really quite simple. I wanted for those who participated to take a pause and find a way to think about how they (and we) are connected to place. I wanted us to explore the ways we experience a place and to document our experiences with and in a particular place. We asked everyone to visit a meaningful place either physically or through their memory and to just describe the connection to the place. We offered everyone specific entry points into how this could be done. Explorations in place could have occurred by documenting with the senses, drawing pictures, or taking photographs. Individuals could have captured the natural sounds and voices that live in the places that they were connecting to and documenting. I must admit that my Black paint colleagues did not disappoint. There were so many wonderful Padlet postings. I loved learning how one “cannot step in the same river twice”. I was able to see, move, and hear what it is like to walk through one’s building without being in the building. I now want to be stuck in the “interminable traffic” of LA at sunset. Hopefully my descriptions of what participants posted and shared on Padlet have provoked the curiosity of blog readers. They can find the links to the Padlets where all of the wonderful explorations of place are posted. Here is Padlet 1 and Padlet 2.
What new conceptualizations and continued ideas resulted from this experience?
While I have only mentioned a few of the places discussed on the Padlet that stood out to me, all of the postings that I experienced have inspired me to continue exploring our connection to place and to think affectively and speculatively about what place can be and how we can intentionally build to place that connects to us in meaningful and everyday. Arturo Escobar (2018) discusses design theorists Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby’s (2013) argument for speculative design which are “design practices that enable collective discussion about how things could be”. According to Escobar, Dunne and Raby state that “‘design speculations can act as a catalyst for collectively redefining your relationship to reality’ by encouraging - for instance, through what-if-scenarios---the imagination of alternative ways of being”. Escobar continues to describe their idea of critical design and “how critical design is critical thought translated into materiality” (Dunne and Raby 2013, as cited by Escobar, 2018). So, with all of this said, the continuation of this curriculum lab experience, for me, includes considering how our connection to place is or can be tied to the design of the place. I want to be able to explore and imagine how we can engage in a collective design of place and space that creates a materiality that everyone can benefit from. I am also interested in the many ways that we can all be in a place and simultaneously experience different affects- love, joy, excitement, sadness, etc. in equitable ways.
I really appreciate everyone who participated in this curricular experience.
References
Escobar, A. (2018). Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical interdependence, autonomy, and the making of worlds. New Ecologies for the Twenty-First Century.