The Covid-19 Pandemic has once more reminded us how fragile our existence on this planet is and how fragile the planet itself has become. It also made us critically rethink design activities we have been carrying out to shape our environment in order to make ourselves more resilient. Our species is now going through a painful awakening, realizing that in order to make human life last, we have to care for all the living and non-living on a planetary scale.
“Care” then, assumes an ever-greater significance on an ever-greater scale. But who “cares?” Who cares about design’s role to make us well, to make our planet better, healthier? Are we to define the field anew, a totally new professional, a new platform of inquiry? How are we to learn from the history of all design disciplines that dealt with “care”?
Who has the power to care for the other? How can design empower people to care for themselves, for each other and for the planet? How can we care through design?
We would like to invite papers discussing the concept of care and design including but not limited to the areas below:
Special focus: Caring for Covid 19 (design in times of pandemics)
We would like to put a special emphasis on the discussion on past and contemporary applications of design in times of epidemics, and possibly, pandemics. This part invites research papers concentrated on the three pillars of caring for our bodies against Covid-19: hygiene, social distancing and wearing masks. Research papers on how designers tackle these issues, literally and metaphorically are welcome:
Organizing Committee
Bahar Emgin
Erdem Erten
Batuhan Taneri
Gizem Yazıcı
Emre Yıldız
