Farzan Percy Dalal
Design for
Ecology, Social welfare, Technology
Year
2019-2020
Farzan is a social researcher and visual communication designer using HCD methodologies to address inequalities. He is driven by the need to understand human behaviour and social systems. Social systems that work for some and exclude others. As a social researcher and visual communication designer, he is eager to reveal their failure, and propose alternatives that are more inclusive for both human and non-human species. He operates at an intersection of social welfare, technology, and ecology.
Farzan believes that happiness is handmade. He turns to nature to slow down; collecting stones, dried twigs, barks, leaves, flowers, soil, and seeds. He presses them, boils, steams and prints them on fabric & paper. Getting lost on the edges of a local forest on a Sunday afternoon collecting naturally found items – that’s his thing!
INSIGHT
What is your favourite part of the D4C programme?
Farzan’s favourite part of the D4C program would be its curation which had an emphasis on the intersectional nature of wicked problems. Positioning design thinking at the nexus of social, environmental and technological problems as a unique lens that would help shape his future design practice.
Who are you inspired by?
Farzan is inspired by change makers who aren’t afraid to be in non-agreement of the authority or general opinion. Political writers, thinkers and activists like Arundhati Roy, Vandana Shiva, Amartya Sen who are involved in human rights and environmental causes not only inform his work but also lend to his designer-identity as a South Asian. Simultaneously, he is strongly inspired by material culture and the economy of waste which led to his circular economy start-up recycling flower waste as a bio-material in the UK.
What area of design are you most interested in?
Post his MA, Farzan is in the ‘discovery phase’ of his life. He is most interested in balancing human centered design processes with systems / situation centric design. He is currently interested in frameworks that allow for systems-design beyond the Anthropocene especially in the economy of waste. Although at the same time, he is interested in the third sector and what design can do to assist them in their mission.
