ID Hosts Design as Activism Symposium September 13–14, 2024

If the notion that designers work in their own bubble, neutrally existing outside of the politics of the world around it, is still lingering, Institute of Design Visiting Assistant Professor Jessica Meharry makes a concise case as to why that simply isn’t true anymore.

In fact, the title of the ID course that she helped create says it all: Politics of Design.

“Part of what we talk about is that everything that we do and design at ID—and in the field in general—has its own politics. It’s not neutral,” Meharry says of the course. “There used to be this idea that the designer is neutral, and we’ll just come in and provide a service and we’ll leave. But in doing that, what are you providing? What does that do in the world?”

Those questions and many others like them will be addressed during ID’s Design as Activism Symposium. The two-day event will take place on September 13–14 at locations around Chicago and at Illinois Tech’s Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation and Tech Entrepreneurship, the home of the Institute of Design.

The symposium will bring together designers from industry, those working independently, and from academia, as well as community organizers, activists, and artists to explore how design is used to ensure that everyone “can live equitable, just, and flourishing lives,” Meharry says.

The opening keynote will be given by Anne H. Berry, a writer, designer, and director of the School of Design at the University of Illinois Chicago. Her research focuses on race/representation and educational pedagogy in the field of design, and her published writing includes “The Virtual Design Classroom” for Communication Arts magazine and “The Black Designer’s Identity” for the inaugural issue of the Recognize anthology, which features commentary from Indigenous people and people of color.

Made possible through a grant from the Terra Foundation for American Art, the symposium came together in partnership with the Chicago History Museum, which recently launched the Designing for Change: Chicago Protest Art of the 1960s–70s exhibition. The exhibition showcases “more than 100 posters, fliers, signs, buttons, newspapers, magazines, and books from the era, expressing often radical ideas about race, war, gender equality, and sexuality,” according to the museum.

Expanding beyond the Design for Change exhibition, the Design as Activism Symposium will explore how social and political activism is taking place now. The symposium will do so by convening Chicagoans involved in this work, examining community-led approaches that lead to positive impact, and considering the evolving partnership between design and activism.

“We make sure there are a full range of stakeholders, that our actions are community-led or community-driven. We’re not just parachuting into a community saying, ‘We know what’s best for you,’ delivering some sort of design solution and leaving,” Meharry says. “It’s a long-term engagement. There are more people involved than just the designer. What we do now is facilitate between different groups of people and help them all be creative together.”

On Day One, attendees will visit sites and pop-up events across Chicago, many of which will take place at the Chicago History Museum, located in the city’s Lincoln Park neighborhood, including a workshop with Shannon Downey of Badass Cross Stitch. Across the city, Symposium events will showcase the diversity of work happening in all parts of Chicago—such as a Designing Belonging conversation featuring a grand-scale puppet project designed by Grace Needlman of Redline Service artists, which will take place in Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood.

Day Two, which takes place at the Kaplan Institute (and online), will feature speakers, workshops, panel discussions, and interactive making activities.

Chandra Christmas-Rouse, an urban planner, advocate and artist, will give the closing keynote on Day Two. Christmas-Rouse’s background in community development and environmental justice informs her design approach of working with community stakeholders in a participatory process to support capacity building, achieve place-based solutions, and reimagine systems. She currently directs housing TA and policy advocacy strategies at the Metropolitan Planning Council and is the author of Where the Sidewalk Grows.

“Designers interact with communities differently,” adds Meharry. “Even within this topic, there’s diversity and different approaches, from anti-racist to feminist to queering to just thinking more broadly about power.”

A schedule of events is online, and it will continue to be updated. Registration is open for all of Friday’s events and to attend Saturday’s events virtually, and can be completed online.