2022 Retrospective: Embassy of Inclusive Society

“Inclusivity isn’t something you just do on the job and then go home to your own bubble,” says Shay Raviv, curator of the Embassy of Inclusive Society. “The question is whether you are also involved as a person.” 

Raviv: “Inclusivity can be seen as an invitation to shape our society together.” The point, according to Raviv, is to always be open to that invitation. “We should keep practising that. Otherwise, we can fall back into deeply entrenched patterns of thought.”

Raviv uses the gym as a metaphor: “You are never done exercising. With regular exercise, your body enters a mode where you are very flexible, or muscular, or where your cardiovascular health is very good. If you haven’t done anything for a year, your body will begin to lose out on those benefits. Then you have to begin practising again or do something else.”

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

Design based on your own experience and needs

The Embassy chose the Van Abbemuseum as the location for the exhibition during DDW22. The museum has been researching for years how to design a more inclusive and accessible exhibition space. It also affords tranquillity and ample space to talk to one another. For the exhibition, Raviv chose works by designers who designed from their own experience and needs.

Such as Haptic Room Studies #1 Porcelain Membrane Wall and #3 Conservation piece. This is a collaboration of Adi Hollander, Andreas Tegnander, Eva Fotiadi, Ildikó Horváth, Sungeun Lee and Yonatan Cohen. The works are part of a long-term artistic exploration into the ‘sensory translation’ of visual and performance art. For example, by converting the sound of a film or translating a piece of music into a tactile experience. 

Migrant women shared their stories in ‘How to Tell a Herstory’. This is a platform that creates space for a critical reflection on gender, migration and family power structures, through the lens of everyday photography. Each story begins with a few photos selected by the narrator and uploaded to the Herstory Tool, a learning tool specially developed in collaboration with developer Babusi Nyoni. Ebru Aydin, who among other things took the photos, and textile artist Marjolein van der Wal, also worked on this project. 

The exhibition also includes objects by designer Asefeh Tayebani. With her objects, Tayebani offers insight into life with autism. The designer herself also has a form of autism. She wants to show people with autism that their disability is not a ‘box’ in which they have to hide.

Two tables inlaid with wood offered an invitation to come together and exchange thoughts and ideas. This piece comes from the Voorkamer in Utrecht, a place to meet different cultures. The tables are part of a series of five designed by Pim van der Mijl, Sapin Makengele, Maher Sobhea, Alaa Khweis and Shurooq Al-Qasemi. 

The installation ‘Design Anthropology in the context of social issues’ can also be seen during DDW22. On the one hand, this installation invites policymakers to become acquainted with design anthropology as a new approach to inclusive citizen participation. On the other hand, the installation offers new insights and tools to designers who want to create in a participatory way. Bureau Ruimtekoers, together with design anthropologist Tina Lenz, developed a five-step process based on the principles of design anthropology.

View Shay Raviv’s virtual curator tour here, in which she invites you to question your existing ways of thinking.

Labels

In addition to an exhibition, there were a total of fourteen workshops and sessions in which to engage in discussions with one another. For example, ‘Inclusively Wired’ was about the talents and quality of people with a neurodiverse brain. Neurodiversity is often labelled from the perspective of a disorder, at the risk of losing sight of the person with a Neurodiversity brain as a person. But also that neurodiverse people, often young people, often feel different or even excluded. Are we able to look beyond the labels and embrace neurodiversity as a game changer? Organised by Studio Junctuur, iDROPS and Daisy Dawson, the Inclusively Wired session is a follow-up session to a talk at Design Fest Ghent and the summer school organised by iDROPS in July.

Image depot

Press photographers, journalistic researchers from the Journalism and Responsible Innovation lab at Fontys University for Applied Sciences’ school of journalism, designers and experiential experts explored how we can better highlight the problems surrounding homelessness. This happened during the workshop ‘Image depot: a better perspective on homelessness’. Why is this imagery and representation important and what responsibility do journalists have in this?

A mirror

A conference including speakers such as architect Lyongo Juliana, Studio Smelt, artist Marcin Karwiński and experts from healthcare and research institutions was both inspiring and confrontational. Karwiński held up a mirror to the speakers and the audience. He appealed to them to be curious about everyone. “What can the other do? How does the other think? Most importantly, show concern for one another. Examine issues with the relevant target group. Ask the target group to come up with solutions. That target group has these solutions for you. Don’t ask only after the fact. That just doesn’t work.” Karwiński also gave a workshop on Saturday morning called ‘Verbal and non-verbal communication – what’s the difference?’

A mirror

A conference including speakers such as architect Lyongo Juliana, Studio Smelt, artist Marcin Karwiński and experts from healthcare and research institutions was both inspiring and confrontational. Karwiński held up a mirror to the speakers and the audience. He appealed to them to be curious about everyone. “What can the other do? How does the other think? Most importantly, show concern for one another. Examine issues with the relevant target group. Ask the target group to come up with solutions. That target group has these solutions for you. Don’t ask only after the fact. That just doesn’t work.” Karwiński also gave a workshop on Saturday morning called ‘Verbal and non-verbal communication – what’s the difference?’

In addition to the conference, the Embassy also organised a symposium in collaboration with Concrete Blossom in the Van Abbemuseum; Parallel Worlds and spaces in-between. What does the city look like when the knowledge and skills of migrant communities would be the starting point in designing the public domain?

A question for an ageing society

ActiZ is a partner of the Embassy of Inclusive Society. The reason why they are participating in this Embassy specifically is that health is organised only in small part by the healthcare sector. Anneke Westerlaken, chairman of the industry association ActiZ: “Being healthy mainly stems from the fact that you can participate in society. For example, because you have a place to live and because you have enough social contacts. Experiencing good health results only in small part due to our healthcare sector; it is due mainly to factors external to it. The inclusiveness of society is therefore very important in this regard. The issue of the ageing society is not an issue for the healthcare sector, but an issue for the ageing society itself.” 

ActiZ ensures that people who are getting older can still participate and have a full place in society. “Ageing requires a different way of living and a different way of looking at the ageing process. Examining how we can give substance to this, is what we are doing here at DDW.” 

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