Reimagining design and education in a post-growth society.
We are presently in a crisis that is nothing like anything we have ever faced before and cultures across the world are assumed to undergo a cultural evolution from redefining perceptions of nature on a personal level to re-rig laws on an institutional level as Salminen (2018: 45) argues. Subsequently, this cultural evolution will potentially inform a new awareness, positively shaping the ‘society of the future’ that focuses on human and planetary well-being reinforced through a different definition and measure of the quality of life and education (Salminen 2018: 34). The potential to proactively evolve as a society is mainly driven by the human ability to learn and innovate leading to cultural transmission in a post-growth society. (Wilson 1994).
Materials for Learning
‘A great deal of knowledge the university delivers, is based on the needs of the world that was, and so is de facto ‘education of disengagement, or in error’ (Fry 2020: 2). Moreover, most big fashion businesses that influence global change such as the climate crisis on a significant scale, are located in the Global North. These countries and their education systems face the responsibility to educate for changing the fashion paradigm, and therefore must drastically change how design education is shaped. Thus, there is demand for universities to reflect on their purpose within the context of ecological survival (Bushell et al. 2017; Molthan-Hill et al. 2019). The tremendous shift required to equip students in a post-pandemic world with the skills and competencies for autonomous learning that fosters a new regenerative fashion paradigm is recognised and demands a radical curriculum redesign.
Recognising the destructive nature of many of the practices involved in the clothing industry, momentum for a global conversation regarding the future of fashion has been building over decades although a formal definition of the term sustainability is still lacking. At the 2022 United Nations Conference of the Parties, COP27, signatories have agreed on a loss and damage fund to support vulnerable countries in fighting the impact of climate change. This serves to underline the role educational systems play as part of wider national commitments in relation to their climate change accountability. Consequently, what can reconfiguring accountability from an educational perspective as part of the urgent political agenda look like?
Reimagining the fashion system challenges not only the role of design but also the role of the designer. In an emerging fashion system, traditional skills will be expanded to becoming a compassionate and responsible facilitator, a creative and social activist.
Their contribution will be expressed through creating pleasurable fashion items, systems and services that move beyond aesthetics only and therefore must fulfil substantial, partly legally enforced partly self-set expectations on social justice and environmental friendliness per se. Fashion will become co-creation, collaboration and an expression of where we as creatives stand, the values we associate to the self and the care we assign to being one with Nature instead of remaining a distant relative.
“Slow time is important. It’s just brilliant, because you can’t do anything about it [Nature] except just observe and be as helpful as possible.”
— Interview with John Newling, Artist (2022)