Design Activism

This lecture I want to associate with my current group project. Our project about Deptford community.

Deptford is a rapidly evolving area undergoing a huge regeneration. However, its deep history is rooted in the local residents; a diverse group of individuals, with many wondering how the area will shape in the future.

We have barely any experience of Deptford, and so we do not want to try and tell the area’s history; instead, we want to design an action where residents and visitors can create history. We want to share a story told by the voices of those living in Deptford today.

Deptford is unique, as it is a small home of cultural diversity, with residents from many different nationalities. Everyone has taken different paths, journeys and experiences to congregate in this same place.

By interviewing people’s stories, memories, experiences and facts about their journey to Deptford, we wish to fragment these conversations and randomly arrange new sentences from these broken conversations to create another story.

We want to push the boundaries between private and public space, so it will be possible for people to participate in a private way, in order to contribute to a public event.

The installation will become an interactive stage; seen as a performance in which you participate both as actor and audience.

The performance will be executed in the form of silhouettes from shadows and sound. The shadows will act as a disguise, allowing each person to act without being “seen”. Each person’s contribution and participation will make the plot.

A similar effect will be created with an audio installation. Conversations with Deptford residents about their journey there will be recorded and randomly shuffled. By re-mixing their stories, they will become less private, but will not lose their context. Even though it will be nearly impossible to determine the flow of the original conversations, the words will remain the same, and the story changes from being an individual’s to a community’s. People can find their stories on Deptford website, which we create to tell people stories, history, facts about Deptford area.

As the spatial intervention will take place in a Christmas Market, we want to keep with these visual and atmospheric themes by creating a cosy installation with narrative voices, light and movement. The installation will communicate ideas of sharing and being together.