FREE: Designing Loving Worlds

We are excited to welcome the founder of Open heart Clinic, Yaa Addae (she/they) a writer, researcher, and participatory curator whose practice is concerned with architecture, both social and physical to facilitate a 2 part workshop in response to themes surrounding the ongoing speculative archive project.

Open Heart Clinic workshop:  Designing Loving Worlds is  guided by the question, 'what does it look like to return love to the systemically underloved?'. This 2-hour workshop, led by Yaa Addae, invites us to first, consider how design upholds structural violence and armed with this knowledge, begin to carefully imagine new ways of being together towards personal and collective healing -  leaning into how these themes intersect with the local Newham community, as well as our own if coming from elsewhere.

Drawing on case studies of community care practices, Black feminist cultural references and personal experiences, we will collectively theorise around the politics of love and co-design  blueprints for future care infrastructure. Participants will be introduced to introductory trends forecasting methods (for liberatory strategising) and speculative design principles.

Reading List

Pre-reading is not necessary, but if you’d like to get ahead, please find the reading list below.

• Technology&ethos - Amiri Baraka

• On the issue of roles - Toni Cade Bambara 

• The mundane afrofuturist manifesto - Martine Syms 

• June Jordan: A Black Feminist Poetics of Architecture - Alexis Pauline Gumbs 

PART 1 - Wednesday the 11th of September 6:30-8:30 pm. Attendance of both sessions is encouraged, but not required.  Find out more.