Course Brief

The workshop introduces the idea of ethics in one’s works, the role of personal-interpersonal histories, and political critiques of design.

While Conventional human-centered design tends to move towards a form of savior-solutionism in name of 'empathy' and 'walking in others’ shoes' whilst creating ‘designs’ for profits, the discussion around sustainable design, in all aspects falls short due to a lack of conversation around the ethics, real-life constraints, geo-cultural politics, politics within the country and knowledge systems in different disciplines. This also leads to a question, can design ever be completely ethical?

Through the medium of making, writing and everything in between, we would explore ethics at the intersection of design, technologies, society, research, and collaborations. Questioning the information and interfaces we encounter and the way they shape how we think, act and feel and find definitions for what ethical decisions in design can look like in practice, the challenges within and possible resolutions.

Following is the edition of the course taken for second-year design students at The Design Village in November 2022.

Sub-topics

Invited Speakers


Exercises

  1. Personal identity writing
  2. Collective world building
  3. Private vs public data categorisation
  4. Design a game character

Assignments

  1. Individual case study presentations
  2. Personal Manifesto
  3. Reflective visual or written essays to be submitted by students

Resources discussed in the class


Some of the student works from the assignments

Selected Case studies

Build our world exercise

Selected Manifestos


Gallery