Date: Monday 13th January 2020

Time: Wine reception 5.30pm, lecture 6pm

Location: GM LT1, Geoffrey Manton Building, Rosamond St West, Manchester

Tickets: Free - Available on Eventbrite

Designing for Mindful Responsibility

In this talk, I will introduce the idea of mindful design in the broader context of design for behaviour change. Mindful design essentially seeks to promote personal responsibility and can be applied in a wide range of contexts. I will explain the concept and its applications in the areas of health and dementia care, safety and sustainability.

The idea and concept of mindful design emerged initially from my observations of social interactions around objects, and how they were facilitated and changed through design. Exploring this idea during my MA through my craft practice using the form of drinking vessels as the ultimate convivial artefact, I then pursued the theoretical development of the concept of mindful design during my PhD study. My observation was that objects within social interaction could have a beneficial influence but often did not, which led me to investigate what caused the differences. This in turn led me to the concept of mindfulness and the search of how to embed mindfulness in people's everyday lives through design.

In subsequent work funded by the AHRC in 2014, I have sought to locate the idea of mindful design in the then emerging wider contexts of design for behaviour change, ethical design and design for social responsibility. In our edited book Design for Behaviour Change (Niedderer, Clune and Ludden 2017), applications of mindful design in areas of safety, crime prevention, health care and social design have been identified. In a further chapter in the Handbook of Sustainable Product Design (Chapman 2017), I argue for the application of mindful design for ecological sustainability.

My most recent project, the European RISE project Designing for People with Dementia: designing for mindful self-empowerment and social engagement (2016-2020), has explored the practical application of mindful design in the context of dementia. Its aim is to help people with dementia engage in social contexts to improve psychosocial wellbeing. Utilising the concept of mindful design, the project has investigated innovative design solutions to enable self-empowerment and confidence building of people living with dementia. It has also advanced a research agenda of public engagement through developing and exploring mindful co-design and co-production approaches with people with dementia, formal and informal carers as well as dementia care professionals.

In the talk, I will trace the development of mindful design, its context and applications, through reference to some key experiences and projects and through a number of visual and hands-on experiential examples from our engaged research, including some mindful moments.

Biography

Kristina Niedderer is Professor of Design at Manchester School of Art at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Kristina Niedderer (Ph.D., MA [RCA]) joined Manchester Metropolitan University as Professor of Design in 2018. Kristina was originally apprenticed and worked as a goldsmith and silversmith in Germany. She then trained as a designer and design researcher in the United Kingdom. Previously, she worked at the University of Hertfordshire (2005-7) and at the University of Wolverhampton (2007-18), first as a Reader and then as Professor of Design and Craft. She is recognised for her work on mindfulness in design, in design research methodology as well as her contribution to the field of craft research.

Kristina's research focuses on the role of design to engender mindful interaction and behaviour change. She currently leads the European project 'Designing for people with dementia: designing for mindful self-empowerment and social engagement' (2016-2020), MSCA grant agreement No 691001. Utilising the concept of mindful design, the project investigates innovative design solutions to enable self-empowerment and confidence building of people living with dementia. In 2014, Kristina was principal investigator for the collaborative AHRC funded project 'Creating Sustainable Innovation through Design for Behaviour Change’, which led to the publication of the edited book 'Design for Behaviour Change’.

The idea of mindful design and behaviour change has also inspired Kristina's work in craft and design practice in which she focuses on exploring complex emotional expression through (elastic) movement, using new technologies, which was funded by the Arts Council in 2005, and the AHRC in 2008-9. Her work has been shown in museums, galleries and trade fairs in Britain and Germany.

Kristina has been a Council Member of the DRS, and Secretary for Special Interest Groups (SIGs) from 2007-2019. In 2010, Kristina founded the journal 'Craft Research' (Intellect Publishers), dedicated to developing and advancing contemporary craft practice and theory through research, which she co-edits with Dr Katherine Townsend, Nottingham Trent University. Since 2010, Kristina is a member of the AHRC College of Peer Reviewers, since 2014 she has been an expert reviewer for the European Commission, and since 2019 she is a reviewer for the World Health Organisation. She is internationally recognised for her research through regular invitations as invited and keynote speaker at national and international events.

Professor Dew Harrison will be the respondent.

Dew Harrison is a Professor of Digital Media Art, Chair of the University Professoriate and Director of the Centre of Art Design Research and Experimentation (CADRE) at the University of Wolverhampton, UK. As a practice-led researcher with a PhD from Roy Ascott’s CAIIA, her work continues to explore a theoretically informed computer-mediated approach to the territory between art, technology and consciousness studies in order to position a participatory concept-based art practice. This involves semantically associating ideas and concepts into non-linear multimedia installations exhibited in the UK and internationally. She considers the dialogue between the virtual (digital) realm and the real world, as a semantic space for creative exploration, and collaborates with AI programmers to make her works come alive. Dr Harrison also collaborates with designers and animators and is the Wolverhampton lead for the Horizon 2020 MinD: Designing for People with Dementia project