Speakers:
Audrey G. Bennett, Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor USA
Jennifer A. Vokoun, Walsh University, Ohio, USA.
Every wicked problem in society has a “wicked solution.” In this presentation, we describe a system of design outcomes that can be mapped to a grid with two dimensions - top-down or bottom-up and widespread or localized. This approach, called critical mapping, allows us to analyze systemic societal problems, scope out existing solutions, and find opportunities for sustainable design intervention. When we plot the existing solutions onto a wicked solution grid, we can strategically determine “leverage points” or places to intervene to shift the system towards equity and justice. When we applied critical mapping to address the wicked problem of food insecurity, inequity, and injustice, we found 73 sustainable food design outcomes (dos) that make up the wicked solution to food insecurity, inequity, and injustice. In this presentation, we will share some of them and discuss the leverage points that social innovators (e.g., policymakers, citizens, etc.) can use to strategize the appropriation of existing sustainable food dos or the development of new ones.
Audrey G. Bennett is the Director of the Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability (DESIS) Lab at Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design and an inaugural University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She is also a former Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Scholar of the University of Pretoria, South Africa. She studies the design of transformative images that, through interactive aesthetics, can permeate cultural boundaries and impact how we think and behave toward good social change. She was awarded the 2022 AIGA Steve Heller Prize for Cultural Commentary.
Jennifer A. Vokoun is an Associate Professor of Graphic Design at Walsh University, Ohio, USA. She is the founder and Director of The Center for Sustainable Food Design, formerly the Food Design Institute, facilitating community engagement and leading participatory design research on food systems issues, and serves as a faculty leader for the university’s Blouin Global Scholars, an interdisciplinary cohort focused on food, sustainability, and hunger in a local and global context. Her research focuses on design and social innovation applied to sustainable food systems and food insecurity issues.
The talk will be followed by an online Q&A session.
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