Final Reflection

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Feb 20, 2024

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Abigail Boateng THRC30 Helen Yung Apr. 12, 2021 Final Reflection 1. How do you think design shapes our experiences? (min 300 words; worth 3 marks) Design is everywhere. Design is in everything. Design lives, breathes, and moves within us. It is within our blood and it is apart of our being. Design shapes our experiences and our experiences shape our designs. Design may be precise and calculated but it is also produced organically and is innate within in our nature. From your first childhood memories of drawing a colourful crayola rainbow to the outfit you choose to put on this morning, every memory, every experience, every obstacle, every season, every laugh, every cry is shaped by design. Design enables us to view things from different perspectives, to reposition ourselves and see things through different lens to better understand a person, a situation, an issue, a group, or community. It enables empathy, compassion, understanding but can also evoke riot, ridicule, and debate. It highlights the imperialistic design of western museums and questions its historical structure against requirements to decolonization. It can be used as a tool or a weapon for social change, justice or deconstruction to address important issues for example, missing indigenous women articulated in Tara Began’s play In Spirit . It can be used to tell stories in which can only be told through a visual language and intangibles through means of dance, music, art and physical expression. Such as the visuals presented in the short film White Face that illustrates the indigenous identity in relation to the white hegemonic dominance. It stimulates imagination, exploration, creativity to reveal new ways of thinking akin to Tanja Beers innovative methods of repurposing worldly items like sausage netting transformed into an intricate human-sized spider web. It enables insightful observations never thought of before. For example, Es Delvin’s expanded vision of stage design and its essential obligation to be center around the spectator whether they are watching a concert live in person or observed through a rectangular glass screen. Or Maddie Batista’s serendipitous utilization of the sound of a passing train outside her window unintentionally working perfectly within her soundscape design. It can uncover universal truths that can build up or break down an institution, a construct or a theory. It propels history by aiding the evolution of the human mind. Design shapes not only our experiences but it shapes us as individuals, entities, and beings. Design shapes us, we are products of design. 2. You’ve just been hired by a theatre company to be their resident designer. Create a 5- point manifesto or instruction manual for implementing ecoscenography principles into the company’s design practices. Basically, what are the 5 steps you would present to the company for immediate adoption? These may be points that were covered by Tanja Beers

or Michelle Tracey. Please come up with at least two ideas of your own. Remember to make these as practical or ‘implementation-ready’ as possible. Your 5-point slide would ideally list 5 action items, not just 5 guiding principles. (min 300-400 words; worth 5 marks) To implement eco-scenography principles into the company’s design practices we must first define the term and what it means to the company to better understand our goals to achieving this eco-scenography-based practice. Tanja Beers defines eco-scenography as “the practice of bringing performance design into an increased awareness of broader ecologies and global issues; interweaves ecological, social and cultural aspects of performance design to produce evocative spatial experiences; focused on mitigating waste and environmental impact while also seeking to create positive environmental and social outcomes.” Now to implement eco-scenography principles Beers address 3 major steps that we could employ to aid our company within this process. The first step is co-creation which includes place-based scenography also know as site-specific theater (also branching off into immersive theater) where the company could be open to utilizing local available spaces as the set for our stage for example, a local park, a warehouse or a train station. This could also involve making use of available spatial features, found objects and materials to guide the process. The second step is celebration where the performance season is not an endpoint but a mid-point where cross-pollination occurs and the stage can be used as a platform to showcase ‘sustainability’ and test out new ideas for example, celebrating materials in a highlighted way like the impact of plastic waste incorporated into the design. Thirdly, she proposes the important step of circulation such as considering the afterlife of theater materials and the construction process for example, reusing items or encouraging sharing culture within the art community. Two other implementations we could apply include ecological activism and community involvement. For example, within a natural outdoor stage get the audience to positively interact with the space like picking up litter, planting a seed, watering a garden, retrieving waste from a river as apart of the design. The company can also encourage ecological activism by providing information about sustainability within the programs and the space inhabited by the audience. The company can change its ways of energy use by using energy efficient equipment, incorporating reusable energy within a design for example utilizing solar panels as a source to light a stage. We may also work to achieve no paper waste by having digital programs and tickets online, using composable and biodegradable materials or repurposing materials like wood into new designs for other projects and productions. 3. Great, you’ve done such a good job, the same theatre company wants to know, what is your 5-point plan for decolonizing design? It will take more than 5 action items to decolonize theatre, but you are setting out the 5 first steps that you and the organization will take. You may think broadly here: Beyond designing shows that you’ve been assigned to design, what might you as scenographer propose as a program, project or outreach or research endeavour for the company to take on? (min 300-400 words; worth 5 marks)

To begin to decolonize theatre within this company we must first work within the current state of the company to employ discursive actions and methods to address any internal issues of hegemonic, supremacist, racist, or misogynistic constructs by demolishing current established systems and starting from scratch building on a foundation that fosters an open, safe, creative, and comfortable environment for every staff and audience member. We must also consider the aesthetic form of the art we decide to produce. We must move away from the westernized and Eurocentric ideals of what defines theater. But instead include various forms and be open to different styles of art such as ceremonies and rituals as an equal opportunistic form within our company. We should develop and encourage pluralism by not only being more inclusive versus exclusive but further delving into pluralist groups and forms of art for example, we may have a department for black art that caters to other subsidiaries such as mental health groups. We may include more complex and in-depth class for understanding various cultures such as learning languages to better understand theater meanings within their art forms to develop more than just a superficial understanding of groups of people. With that said hiring is extremely important where particular individuals such as individuals who identify as black indigenous people of colour (BIPOC) should be hired to lead and facilitate such projects that are centered around their culture, heritage and community. We as a company should work toward de-centering ‘standard’ texts and Eurocentric core content by reimaging and updating these works focusing on current radical artists of our time for example, instead of staging Shakespeare play Othello staging Sears play Harlem Duet instead, a black playwright writing about black characters. Lastly, our company should encourage community driven art to further develop this decolonization of imperialistic ideas by welcoming all demographics and people from all walks of life to promote a beautiful mosaic of art and artists providing support and possible grants to systemically minorized groups. 4. What do you want to see happen in design, or by designers, in the future? (min 100-200 words; worth 1 mark) What I want to see happen in design is a radical shift within the system. There is currently already a radical transformation within the design community where artists are not afraid to be labelled as eccentric, different or avent-grade. Artists are not afraid to display gruesome, abstract, or ‘crazy’ art on stage. They are not fearful to tell their stores, reveal their true selves, expose their entire souls to the public. However, who is fearful is the system. What I refer to as the system are the institutions, academia, industries, award shows, media, churches, schools, libraries, etc. They have yet to evolve parallel with the evolution of design. I want to see great work be recognized. I want great artists to be recognized. I want to learn about great work and great artists of our time. In terms of design in the future I want to see flying cars, living robots, holograms and 3d printing. Ridiculously enough all these things listed do indeed already exist which is congruent with the statement I want to make in that what I really want to see is design grow within this ever rapidly evolving technological world. Although, humans are the inventors I also do not want design to loss

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that lively touch of humanity of authentic, organic, innate design only processable through the firing neurons in the pink matter that inhabits the human mind. 5. Can design save the world? (min 100 words; worth 1 mark) Design can save you; design can save me; design can save a life and design can save the world. A mechanical robotic arm designed to perform heart surgery, a radical Black Lives Matter art installation that motivates protest for defunding police, a simplistic white stage that casts a blue light on a single actor standing front and center triggers a tear from a person in the audience. Design is meant ignite, inspire, and inquire a need for change. Design solves problems, assigns meaning, enhances society and pushes the advancement of humanity. The light bulb, smartphones, electronics, cheese! We would be nothing without design, we need design for survival, we need design to live. Design saves the world.

Final Reflection

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