85605 Design Differences: Community Identities

Requisite(s): 85502 Researching Design History AND 85503 Researching Design Processes
Undergraduate

Designers fulfil the needs and desires of others through empathy. This subject explores notions of identity so that students can have more insight into their own background and more flexibility when trying to understand the backgrounds of others.

They examine changing senses of self and community in an age of globalised media and commerce, using contemporary cultural studies perspectives. This subject also explores the different ways designers can help build the capacities of communities to sustain themselves in the future. The subject centres around interdisciplinary collaborations through which students identify an area of need, and then, in consultation with representatives of that context, design empowering responses.