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Design for the other 90%
<p>David Stairs over at Design Observer <a href="http://www.designobserver.com/archives/entry.html?id=27474">reviews</a> the exhibition "<a href="http://other90.cooperhewitt.org/">Design for the Other 90%</a>" at the Cooper Hewitt Museum. He visited it having just arrived from 10 months in Africa. He was worried by what he found.</p>
<p>"Essentially, <i>Design For the Other 90%</i> is shot through with well-intentioned nostrums, familiar statistics, and a messianic calling to open peoples' eyes to the disparities of the world."</p>
<p><b>The gist:</b></p>
<p>- Many of the 'solutions' were not practical and showed little understanding of the African daily living experience - they presumed too much. Designing at a cultural and physical distance results in turkeys.</p>
<p>- an over-reliance on novel technologies that may not fit the situation.</p>
<p>- The design is one way - gifts from the 1st to the 3rd world. "The idea of design intervention — sustainable or otherwise — may feel very intrusive to people who are still reeling from 150 years of colonial intervention. (You don't just waltz into a patriarchal society and aggressively advocate equal opportunity for women, or deliver pumps and boreholes to peasant farmers without understanding the sociology of migratory herdsmen)."</p>
<p> <a href="http://www.designobserver.com/archives/entry.html?id=27474">www.designobserver.com/archives/entry.html</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="http://www.designobserver.com/Images/Stairs-90%25exhibition.jpg" alt="" />
<font color="#777777"><i>Design for the Other 90%</i>, exhibition in Cooper-Hewitt garden. Exhibition design by Studio Lindfors; graphic design by Tsang Seymour Design. Photograph by Andrew Garn.</font></p>
<p>"Essentially, <i>Design For the Other 90%</i> is shot through with well-intentioned nostrums, familiar statistics, and a messianic calling to open peoples' eyes to the disparities of the world."</p>
<p><b>The gist:</b></p>
<p>- Many of the 'solutions' were not practical and showed little understanding of the African daily living experience - they presumed too much. Designing at a cultural and physical distance results in turkeys.</p>
<p>- an over-reliance on novel technologies that may not fit the situation.</p>
<p>- The design is one way - gifts from the 1st to the 3rd world. "The idea of design intervention — sustainable or otherwise — may feel very intrusive to people who are still reeling from 150 years of colonial intervention. (You don't just waltz into a patriarchal society and aggressively advocate equal opportunity for women, or deliver pumps and boreholes to peasant farmers without understanding the sociology of migratory herdsmen)."</p>
<p> <a href="http://www.designobserver.com/archives/entry.html?id=27474">www.designobserver.com/archives/entry.html</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="http://www.designobserver.com/Images/Stairs-90%25exhibition.jpg" alt="" />
<font color="#777777"><i>Design for the Other 90%</i>, exhibition in Cooper-Hewitt garden. Exhibition design by Studio Lindfors; graphic design by Tsang Seymour Design. Photograph by Andrew Garn.</font></p>
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