This presentation was given at Camberwell College of Art, University of London, as part of the BA contextual studies course The Expanded Designer. It was part of the presentations grouped around the topic of Power.

1. Design - Economies - Designers
or, Let’s tweak power relations
Bianca Elzenbaumer / Brave New Alps
www.brave-new-alps.com
@bravenewalps
The Expanded Designer, Camberwell College of Art,
University of London, 19.10.2015

2. Premise

3. Premise
- as designers we create imaginaries

4. Premise
- as designers we create imaginaries
- we perpetuate or transform value-practices

5. Premise
- as designers we create imaginaries
- we perpetuate or transform value-practices
- we can enact prefigurative politics

6. Premise
- as designers we create imaginaries
- we perpetuate or transform value-practices
- we can enact prefigurative politics
Our skills put us in a pretty powerful position!

7. Premise
- as designers we create imaginaries
- we perpetuate or transform value-practices
- we can enact prefigurative politics
Our skills put us in a pretty powerful position!
But precarious working and living conditions* often
act as a blockage to fully take on responsiblities.

8. *precarious working and living conditions:
- underpaid work
- irregular work
- hyper-flexibility
- work taking over life
- no sick pay
- no parental leave
- no pension scheme
- no paid holidays

9. *precarious working and living conditions:
- underpaid work
- irregular work
- hyper-flexibility
- work taking over life
- no sick pay
- no parental leave
- no pension scheme
- no paid holidays
But passion, ambition and disorientation seem to
keep us going.

10. Let’s use our design skills to tweak these power
relations!

11. Let’s use our design skills to tweak these power
relations!
Designing (empowering) economic cultures
as prefigurative politics.

12. Let’s use our design skills to tweak these power
relations!
Designing (empowering) economic cultures
as prefigurative politics.
Economy not as a distant sphere, but as something
we make every day.

13. Let’s use our design skills to tweak these power
relations!
Designing (empowering) economic cultures
as prefigurative politics.
Economy not as a distant sphere, but as something
we make every day.
Mobilise design “to become different economic
beings” (J.K. Gibson-Graham, 2006) and to shift
precarising socio-economic dynamics.

14. Two suggestions

15. Two suggestions
a) learn the business tools of our trade

16. Two suggestions
a) learn the business tools of our trade
b) enact prefigurative politics:
in how we structure our practice and
through what we produce

18. Formes Vives (Brest, Nantes, Marseilles)
- 3 graphic designers & illustrators
- work with non-profit organisation, activist
groups, public institutions, artists
- 3 different cities (large client base)
- constantly learn from each other
- common website
- daily one hour online meeting
- occasional work sessions in the same place
Seeinterview:http://precaritypilot.net/formes-vives/

20. Kate Rich / Feral Trade (Bristol)
- artist, hacker and radical trader
- 1 project since 2003
- part of the loose collective irational.org
- low cost living
- minute attention to monetary and
non-monetary resources
- not growth oriented
See interview: designingeconomiccultures.net

21. Importance of designing economic cultures

22. Importance of designing economic cultures:
- undo (or at least deal proactively with) own
working conditions in this precarising industry

23. Importance of designing economic cultures:
- undo (or at least deal proactively with) own
working conditions in this precarising industry
- making space for design practices that are less
market-driven

24. Importance of designing economic cultures:
- undo (or at least deal proactively with) own
working conditions in this precarising industry
- making space for design practices that are less
market-driven
- open the field of design for people from less
privilged backgrounds

25. Importance of designing economic cultures:
- undo (or at least deal proactively with) own
working conditions in this precarising industry
- making space for design practices that are less
market-driven
- open the field of design for people from less
privilged backgrounds
... in order to activate our collective design skills to
shift power relations to a more hopeful place.

26. Thank you.

27. Some reading suggestions
Askins, K., 2015. Participatory geographies, in: Richardson, D. et al. (Eds.), International
Encyclopedia of Geography. Wiley-Blackwell with Association of American Geographers,
Washington, DC.
Brave New Alps, 2015. Precarity Pilot: Making Space for Socially- and Politically
Engaged Design. Modes of Criticism.
Gibson-Graham, J.K., 2006. The Community Economy, in: A Postcapitalist Politics. Univer-
sity of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis/London, pp. 79–100.
Graziano, V., 2014. Neither Scylla nor Charybdis: some muses on forming one’s practice
and resisting bad arguments.
http://precaritypilot.net/valeria-graziano-organising-your-practice/