Creative workshops

Empathy building for designers

The Empathy Building workshop is an interactive session where students have the opportunity to use empathy tools that can help them gain a better understanding of people who have a different lived experience from their own. The workshop enables students to see how they can ‘design with empathy’ which subsequently can help them to create more relevant and meaningful work.

The workshop explores various techniques and approaches and enables students to try various simulation experiences as well as undertake deep listening activities with the Empathy Toy. Empathy tools include; simulation glasses, an ageing suit, wheelchair, pregnancy suit, and gloves that simulate a reduction in functional ability of the hands, such as with a condition like arthritis. The Empathy Building workshop was run by Graphic Design staff; Alice Stevens, Mark Osborne, Dr Emilie Giles and Marten Sims.

E-textiles

BA Graphic Design students took part in a morning workshop with Emilie Giles to explore how circuits can be built and programmed using a combination of hardware and soft conductive materials. They explored e-textiles (electronic textiles) as a making process for some of their projects and as a prototyping technique. Electronic textiles is a discipline that includes fashion, engineering, design and computing within its reach. The focus is slightly different depending on the precise field – from designing and making runway garments which light up and make a visual impact – to pedagogical research which explores how the process of teaching coding to young people can be made more creative and engaging.

For the AUB students, the aim was to get them using basic textile materials, designing and making simple swatches of their design, and to be introduced to some basic programming using the Adafruit GEMMA microcontroller board.

Their outcomes were both creative and technical, exploring the potential of tools given.

Exhibition: Our Time on Earth

As part of the programme of work, students from both BA (Hons) Graphic Design and Interior Architecture and Design, visited the Barbican in London to see the ‘Our Time on Earth’ exhibition. The exhibition prompted reflective thoughts on the climate emergency and asked us to consider what were we going to do with our time on Earth The exhibition was curated by Caroline Till and Kate Franklin and provided an engaging and interactive exploration of ideas for how we might live and reconnect to nature.

Student, Gemma Cook noted, ‘I found the exhibition very insightful and learned about nature in a unique and creative way. liked the way that the exhibition utilised a range of media to communicate ideas from giant projections to textiles, audio and interactive elements.’

Student, Eve Sawyer reflected: ‘The most poignant piece in the exhibition for me was Superflux‘s ‘Refuge for Resurgence’. The work explored how as humans we have produced a hierarchy within nature, making our relationships with other species out of balance. The work identified that to exist in harmony, and in a way that supports all life on Earth, human beings need to accept that the world’s ecosystems aren’t ours to control and command. Instead, they’re a network of connections that include us.

The piece made me consider an environment and outlook had never previously considered. Imagining a future from a multi-species mindset, with all living creatures considered equal, is a new and disruptive way of thinking for me.’

Edward Ward

Senior Lecturer BA (Hons) Interior Architecture and Design