2023 Retrospective: Embassy of Inclusive Society

According to the Embassy, ​​this provides an opportunity to develop as a society, to grow together despite, and even due to, our differences. As such, the Embassy of Inclusive Society sees inclusivity as a continuous process of learning and unlearning. During Dutch Design Week 2023, the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven featured a spatial experiment in the form of a gym. With a view to learning skills and developing new habits from a variety of projects. 

There was also an intensive workshop programme aimed at learning and unlearning from creators and communities who understand the challenges we face on our path towards a more inclusive and just society. Indeed, everything was geared towards the continuous process of learning and unlearning. A process that requires constant practice, strength training and maintenance.

Read the narrative of the Embassy of Inclusive Society here.

A physical experience 

“Inclusivity is a continuous process of learning and unlearning; it’s not a problem that you can solve overnight or an itemised list you can check off”, according to Shay Raviv, creative director of the Embassy of Inclusive Society. One way to approach inclusion is to facilitate a physical experience with the environment. ‘Your body changes over the course of a lifetime. This is due to the ageing process but also events. These changes happen to us all. Our bodies end up requiring different things from the environment. The exhibition and activities designed by the Embassy allow you to experience, for example, how your body engages with the world and how the body meets the environment.’

It’s about the diverse needs of different bodies, according to Raviv. ‘How can we design for different bodies? Virtually everything within our environments is designed for the “average” body of a straight, white, cisgender, mature, healthy, slender and non-disabled man. If you deviate from this standard size, the world doesn’t always fit you.’

Read more about the ideas behind the Embassy of Inclusive Society in the interview with Shay Raviv here.

The Gym

Like sport, inclusivity is a process that requires continuous practice and training. In The Gym, designed by Gabriel Fontana, people learned to think of new ways of being open-minded towards everyone. The conversation started with accessibility based on the physical experience. There were training suggestions from different creators. At times very practical ones that called for physical action. These makers occasionally asked for a different way of thinking: mental gymnastics, in other words.

In addition to designs by Gabriel Fontana, The Gym featured projects by, for instance, multidisciplinary designer Davy de Lepper. With his agenda-setting work ‘Homohooligan‘, he uses a Homoholigaan scarf to show support for the LGBTQA+ community. The scarf also enhances the visibility of the community.

Total Body Workout

Visual designer Kexin Hao’s work, Total Body Workout , is more exploratory. Hao’s workout is based on the Chinese morning workouts she participated in every day at school as a child. This workout made you look at your existing physical movements differently. Movements that are formed by the times in which you live.

Lorem Ipsum

The Lorem Ipsum installation could be found near the entrance to the old building of the Van Abbemuseum. ‘Lorem ipsum stands for the text designers use in book proposals, for example, as a kind of placeholder’, explains Raviv. ‘The installation creates space for different accessibility guidelines. It’s a visualisation of the inclusivity guidelines.’ 

Lorem Ipsum is the result of a research and development project by the Embassy’s own team. ‘Last year’s DDW left us with questions about accessibility. So we translated those questions into an installation. We worked with Marleen Hartjes, expanding on the previous research and work she had completed for the Van Abbemuseum regarding accessibility and how to set up an inclusive exhibition. 

Together with exhibition producer Bruns (developer and producer of exhibitions, ed.) and Studio The Anderen, Embassy built the installation. 

Check out the Embassy Tour with Shay Raviv here for a comprehensive view of the Embassy of Inclusive Society exhibition.

Navigation tool and interface

Karin Fischnaller, information designer and founder of design studio The Anderen, designed the Lorem Ipsum installation. “My design studio The Anderen serves as a navigation tool and interface by turning large, unwieldy chunks of raw information into more manageable ones. We make knowledge accessible to the user.”

“The Lorem Ipsum installation visualises important guidelines and advice for inclusive presentations, physical or otherwise. It is an invitation for the public, designers and cultural organisations to reflect on how diverse bodily experiences can be incorporated into design.”

Read the WDE Spotlight with Karin Fischnaller here.

Intensive workshop programme

In addition to an exhibition, there was an extensive workshop programme, in which people could actively engage in learning and unlearning their own patterns and ways of thinking. For example, in The Infrastructural Drag workshop, in which the binary idea of gender (where gender is only viewed in terms of male or female) was deconstructed. This was done with drag, a performance in which gender expressions were exaggeratedly portrayed. 

Or with the workshop Spiegeltje Spiegeltje aan de wand, kan iedereen meedoen in dit land? (Mirror Mirror on the wall, can everyone participate in this country?)’ workshop, where policymakers, councillors and relatives of people with disabilities, among others, discussed care, education and work with the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport’s so-called Spiegelgroep Onbeperkt meedoen! (Mirror Group Unlimited Participation). This group consisting of eight experts by experience, brings the living world of people with disabilities closer to the system world of VWS. The members of the group advise the Onbeperkt Meedoen (Unlimited Participation) team from their daily experience with thresholds in society. 

​​Together with the Spiegelgroep, social designer Lotte de Haan, from design agency Afdeling Buitengewone Zaken, shaped the workshop. During the workshop, people discussed and learned about what you can do to make participation available for everyone. “For people with a visible or invisible disability, there are still many barriers that prevent them from participating sufficiently in society to their own liking and ability,” says Eva de Hoog, senior policy officer at the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport and involved in the implementation of the UN disability convention.

The Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport is a partner of the Embassy of Inclusive Society. De Hoog: “What I like is that designers are increasingly paying attention to behavioural change. This is also an interesting development for us. Right now, our communication strategy focuses on making people aware of the contribution they can make to an accessible society and getting them to take action. We recently launched Vraagje?! (Question?!), the online conversation starter on accessibility. With this, we hope that as many people as possible in the Netherlands will start the conversation about accessibility and look at people with disabilities in a different way: that people are not limited, but rather that society is limited.”

Transparant gesprek

The Niteshop, Concrete Blossom. 

Transparent conversation

That inclusivity is a continuous process of learning and unlearning also became clear during the conference of the Embassy of Inclusive Society. The conference was a moment of slowing down and reflection in a world that is “on fire” and when the trains weren’t running. The programme started that morning energetically and in ‘Rotterdam-style’. With hip-hop as a warm-up and a panel discussion on the The Niteshop – Concrete Blossom’s ‘de Campus voor Alledaagse Kennis (the Campus for Everyday Knowledge)’ project. In the afternoon, there were three narratives being told on stage about working with experience experts and a panel discussion that gave voice to transparent dialogue on inclusivity. Artist and storyteller Onias Landveld closed the programme.

Read the report article on the conference here.

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