“Decolonize Design”-Anoushka Khandwala

This text explains very clearly how colonial history affects the way we design today. And what we can do to adjust our mindset and practices. This article makes a lot of sense to me and comes at the right time.

As designers, our work is inspired by what we were exposed to when we were growing up. But we are imperceptibly taught some design values and history. For example, if these works are considered "good" or "bad", our taste will be deviated according to these contents. These values have led us in a particular direction that the mainstream wants us to go, especially when we were young and don't have an aesthetic base or judgment. The colonization in this article refers to the embedding of western ideology into society and into the design, but I think the same phenomenon exists in the east.

When the heart of the design is set by the standards of the mainstream population, it means that anything else is seen as' different '. As Ncube says, "When a homogenous group of people decide what’s “good,” it’s detrimental to the profession, and results in the majority of people striving towards a similar style." It seems to me that any act of embedding the aesthetic of the majority into the design of the minority can be called “colonised”. It includes mainstream aesthetic intervention, exclusion and disrespect of minority aesthetic behaviours.

I quite agree with Ncube that "Our reliance on western culture inhibits our ability to incorporate other standards." "And" Realizing that the standards we’ve been taught are not universal is key to decoloniality. " This also involves cultural diversity and inclusiveness, we should be more exposed to other cultures, or from the perspective of another cultural group to consider our design. Because the standards we are taught are not applicable to every culture. Just as any disadvantaged group in the world demands equality, so do designs from different cultures.

In the past, I often used Oriental elements in my design, which can be fully perceived and understood by the audience in the environment where I used to live. But now I express from the perspective of western culture, or from the perspective of certain groups of people, to make sure that my audience understands what I'm doing. Now I tend to communicate in an international universal language. At this stage, my designs often require "shatter the familiar." There were many challenges along the way, but I grew a lot.

Finally, I have to mention the last paragraph of the article. ( For far too long, designers have remained married to the concept that what we do is neutral, universal, that politics has no place in design,” says Abdulla. Yet the choices we make as designers are intrinsically political: With every design choice we make, there’s the potential to not just exclude but to oppress; every design subtly persuades its audience one way or another and every design vocabulary has history and context. Learning about the history of colonialism will open our eyes to how power structures have formed society today, and how they dominate our understanding of design. )
This will be the guideline for my future design. Because I used to think that art and design had nothing to do with politics. But the truth is that every design we make is political. We live in the system. What we can do is thinking about our design from the point of view of more people, not just in our familiar way. As designers, we really should know more about history, politics, power and society, so that we can keep a clear head on the way to evolute.

Unit-2 | Portfolio

Unit-2 | Portfolio

350. Reflection on Reading 2 18/02/2020

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