Discrimination of Prejudice
Design for
Critical design, Prejudice, Social change
Year
2019-2020
This project approaches critical design methodology to disconnect the strong bond between prejudice and discrimination through encouraging open and effective communication. The project clarifies the role of critical design by analysing two published examples of critical design and relating their outcome to the goal of this project, which is a participatory design based on conceptual ideation.
The outcome of this project is to encourage viewers to acknowledge the subconscious prejudices that they have and that exist in their community and to provoke self-reflection. Whilst the research does not directly address the North / South Korean issue in the result, it is considered a good starting point for future research into addressing the bigger issue by dealing with the fundamental questions of — discrimination of prejudice.
INSIGHT
Did your project evolve in unexpected ways?
Yes. The project was intended to create a form of directly supportive outcome (i.g. service design) for the end-user, North Korean defectors. However, the process throughout pre-interviews and miscarry lead the right way. To be more specific, to interview North Korean defectors, they were asked the particular questions such as ‘Do you remember one bad experience due to where you are from?’. This is a question entirely contaminated by bias. It came across another fundamental question which has to be answered(or at least to discuss), ‘Have you already thought of a particular person in a particular way?’. In other words, you might think with your bias.
How did this project impact you as a designer moving forward?
This project made me eye-opened. At first, the project had an explicit expectation of how it would complete. I expected this project would be a service design solution at the end. Nevertheless, it came along with its process differently as the research went deep, and I faced a fundamental key question in the middle of the project. Then the result of this project is an installation design that is based on critical design. I think this experience made me not make limitations(which is having a too clear aim) in the first place, let it open but concentrate on a key factor I want to solve.
What was the most difficult part of this project?
Suggesting valid evidence was the most difficult part. Especially, the project needed to have qualitative research to prove my assumption and suggestion. However, under the COVID-19 circumstance, interviewing was one of the difficult processes to go through.
