Twelve fourth year RSID students and one faculty member traveled to Guatemala’s Highlands for a 10-day self-funded field research trip. Students conducted ethnographic research with students, staff, teachers and parents from Life School – including conducting a design workshop with school children ages 3-14. Traveling by motorboat, participants visited smaller outlying communities utilizing micro-financing methods. The group joined in a range of Mayan ceremonies and rituals (relating to cuisine, costumes, blessings, and funerals) and visited Mayan ruins and UNESCO heritage sites in Antigua, Guatemala.
Paper Shoes was a hit at this summer’s Maker Festival. Professor Di Cintio’s studio draws attention from mathematicans, scientists, inventors, while wowing fashionistas and kids.
Design Activism: Developing Models, Modes and Methodologies of Practice journal is now available online. Download it here.
GUEST EDITOR: Dr. Lorella Di Cintio for the IDEA
PROVOCATION
The living conditions of First Nations communities, food-security concerns, access to clean safe water, domestic violence – seemingly disparate subjects can be, and are being, connected to interior design teaching and practice. Such issues are particularly linked to the ongoing discussions of designers working within the new global design paradigm. There is evidence that a range of worthwhile initiatives have been undertaken by design professionals who choose to pursue socially responsible practices, and by educators and practitioners who are intentionally shifting away from a focus on pure aesthetics and market-driven practices.
Dissatisfied with what they perceive as an over-emphasis by the design community on aesthetics, and its failure to meaningfully address the design needs of at-risk and low-income communities, several academics and practitioners have started to incorporate social-justice issues into their design research and teaching – while a number of independent design practitioners are involving themselves in activism.
Design activism is a combined entity of aesthetics and ethics. It is trans-disciplinary, it incorporates mixed media, and it is inspired by the ethics of socio-political activism and community building. Several design activists have partnered with the design profession and specific political agencies to create design solutions that meet the needs of politically, economically, and socially disadvantaged communities, but initiatives are sporadic. In order to make what are now essentially grassroots initiatives a part of the mainstream, models and methodologies for action need to be developed within the design academy. As guest editor, this call is shaped by my desire to make ethics a more central component of interior design practice and pedagogy.
This journal’s theme calls for a re-thinking of interior design pedagogy and a review of current practices found in design activism. For instance, the author(s), could consider and highlight noteworthy projects of scholars whose pedagogy and critical work is linked with activism, and/or respond to pedagogical shifts found in the field of design activism, particularly as they emerge in and relate to the discipline of interior design/interior architecture.
The goals of this call are two-fold: to promote debate, discussion and theorization among designers, design academics and various segments of the general public about the place of ethics and activism in design, and to contribute to the development of knowledge that focuses on embedding design activism into the design curriculum and design profession. The overall objective of the call is to encourage a shift towards activism in interior design theory and design education.
GUEST EDITOR:
Lorella Di Cintio, PhD, is a faculty member in the School of Interior Design at Ryerson University. She has been educated in Canada, United States, and Europe in the fields of Interior Design, Architecture, and Philosophy. Her research focuses primarily on design activism and social responsibility and she is the founder of The Design Change = Exchange Initiative. She is affiliated with the Centre for Studies in Food Security and EDGE lab at Ryerson University. Her area of research focuses on the social and political positions undertaken by designers. Current projects explore and employ various design strategies in the areas of design activism, cross-cultural collaborative design learning, civic engagement and participation, food security activism and human-centred design models. Di Cintio is a dedicated and respected advocate for equity, inclusion and social justice at Ryerson and beyond. She has forged working partnerships with First Nations communities in Canada and Mexico, and her students’ designs have supported Toronto food-bank users, Haitian earthquake survivors, and others. Di Cintio creates unique pedagogical links among design, service learning, and such complex issues as socioeconomic status and food security. She works to develop curriculum that transforms theory into practice.
She has received a silver medal for design education and service from the Universidad Iberoamericana, and represented Ryerson on a design mission to China. Several of Professor Di Cintio’s appointments and accolades, both academically and within the profession, have been “first precedents” for the School of Interior Design. She is an academic reviewer for the Journal of Interior Design with a focus on service-learning pedagogy, and she was recently awarded the position of Editor-in-Charge of Service Activities in Academia with the Interior Design Educators Council (a North American organization). Lorella Di Cintio is increasingly recognized as a leader in the teaching of design activism and the pursuit of design with a conscience.
List of Content:
EDITORIAL Design Activism: Developing models, modes and methodologies of
practice Lorella Di Cintio
VISUAL ESSAY Dear Rosa Julieanna Preston
VISUAL ESSAY Repurposing the Past Tüüne-Kristin Vaikla
PROJECT REVIEW Peace & Quiet Sandra Wheeler
Designing a Community Garden Davide Fassi, Alessandro Sachero and Giulia Simeone
REFEREED STUDIO Unsolicited Interiors Charity Edwards
Contributory Economies, Design Activism and the DIY Urbanism of Renew Newcastle Cathy D. Smith and Michael Chapman
Gate 81: Saving Preston Bus Station Sally Stone
Rethinking Our Values to Achieve Emancipatory Design Jennifer Webb and Brent T. Williams
Envisioning a Future Fleur Palmer (Te Rarawa/Te Aupouri)
BOOK REVIEW M2 Models and Methodologies for Community Engagement
Edited by Reena Tiwari, Marina Lommerse and Dianne Smith Elke Krasny
We’d like to give a special thank all those who supported this year’s rMark campaign. The funds have been released and we are looking forward to raising more awareness and funding in 2016.
The Stop Night Market once again played house to a sold-out crowd this time activating a vacant lot in the Junction neighbourhood. Ryerson University’s Interior Design School entered six carts and two installations to the Night Market’s roster that lent a perfect back drop to the mouth-watering and savoury cuisines. The proceeds of the fundraiser go towards supporting The Stop’s many community-building programs, including: a food bank, drop-in meals, community cooking & gardening, perinatal nutrition & support, education for children & youth, peer advocacy, and civic engagement.
RASA
Truffle gnudi
Cart by ninety3/4
BRANCA
Sweet corn and beef brisket empanadas
Cart by wE>
SMALL TOWN FOOD CO.
Fresh and chips
Cart by Salt and Light
I
HAWTHRONE
Chicken skin taco
Cart by ingrain
TORI’S BAKESHOP
Tasty toast
Cart by LOCKWOOD
Installation by TAKE OUT
MALIVOIRE
Small Lot Gamay and Ladybug Rose
Cart by Ay Bee See Stop
The Stop Night Market 2015 takes place Tuesday, June 16th & Wednesday, June 17th in the vacant lot at 181 Sterling Road in Toronto. This annual fundraising event is a captivating mash-up of the best of Toronto’s street food, art, music, and offers Torontonians a unique chance to experience an iconic space like they’ve never seen it before. Inspired by night markets from around the world, The Stop’s Night Market transforms a public space into a tantalizing feast for the senses over two summer nights in June, featuring over 60 chefs, 20 local beverage vendors, and 35 one-of-a-kind food carts created by local designers.
Creative Catalyst project is a Ryerson Symposium on Art and Social Innovation taking place on June 11-12and taking place in the RSID building.
The lead researchers on the conference are Wendy Cukier, Janine Marchessault (York University), Laurie Petrou and Lorella Di Cintio, with Madeleine Co. as the co-organizers.
Background on Conference:
Creative Catalyst brings together Canadian artists, designers, researchers, industry, and community members in discussion on how arts and culture catalyzes social innovation. In the face of “wicked” social problems, radical innovation is required to change perspective and shift culture. Artists and creatives are at the forefront of communicating social change, using artistic expression and creative practice to open up a space for critical reflection, dialogue, and idea generation.
The symposium is supported through SSHRC, OCE and Ryerson University.
Schedule:
The event begins with an opening reception which is free and open to the public on June 11th. The reception features Edward Burtynsky as our keynote, and access to an interactive art installation co-created by Madeleine Co. and Bodhi Collective, a Ryerson-based student design agency.
The research symposium takes place all day from 9AM – 6PM on June 12th with a keynote by Judith Marcuse, an Ashoka International Fellow, and speaker panelsfeaturing Canadian artists, researchers and industry/community members.
Audience:
The target audience of the conference are researchers, artists and industry, but we would love to have students passionate about the topic in attendance. There are 120 spots available for the symposium, and 200 available for the reception.
We currently have our early bird tickets open until March 30th (Early Bird Student/Artist: $25.00; Early Bird Regular: $75.00), after which tickets will be $40 for Student/Artist, and $100 Regular.
It was another successful event for the students of Ryerson’s Interior Design program and The Stop Night Market as the team served to a sold out crowd. Tucked behind the alleyway of Honest Ed’s sat 44 food vendors dishing out delectable treats in support of efforts to combat hunger and malnutrition in the GTA. This outdoor gastro-avaganza proved to have the perfect combination of designed food and crafted carts. Can’t wait for next year!
Interior Design Partners With The Stop Night Market
Five teams of students, recent grads, alumni and staff have partnered up with some of the city’s best chefs and restaurants to participate in this year’s The Stop Night Market. Each team is creating a cart that will be used at the event to sell food as well as auction off the wonderful wooden utensils that were designed earlier this year by our SID students.
Bare Minimum (Emma Hannaford, Mckayla Durant, Lindsay Hill, Katrina Clany and Samantha Mirabile) is a food cart that is made of reclaimed wood from already fallen trees in the forest, wood and metal from a barn destroyed by a hurricane and other locally collected materials.
It reflects the basic fundamentals that The Stop encourages. It is the concept of using what is available to its best potential. Using already reclaimed and recycled materials the cart is a reflection of environmentally friendly design and sustainable practices.
With portion of the wood donated from Ryerson University of Interior Design’s Year End Show entitled ‘Raw’, the overall aesthetic maintains a consistent message of unique individuality and overall harmony.
Bare Minimum
Reclaimed. Recycled. Reused. Remade
Can be seen with Samuel J Moore & Hawthorne Food & Drink + Mark Cutrara at tonight’s The Stop Night Market 2013
Palette (Adrian Kenny, Shannon McLeod, Nicholas Roland, Lisa Sato & Crystal R. Waddell) has designed a geometric facade that will allow the contemporary cuisines from restaurants Nyood & The Stockyards to shine through.
The dictionary definition of “community” includes meanings that range from local to global
levels, and this is also the range of my approach to community in teaching. On a local level, in 2009 I established an ongoing external partnership in which students design a kitchen utensil for the annual fund-raising event of Toronto’s The Stop Community Food Centre. The proceeds go to The Stop’s innovative anti-hunger programs. In pedagogical terms, this studio works under the umbrella of the model of “service learning.”
I am particularly proud of the scope of this studio’s learning experience as it serves the entire first-year interior design population, which means that from the ”get go” students learn that design can be both aesthetically driven and serve a diverse social-economic community.
The ways in which my definition of community extends beyond the classroom to reach the general public include, for example, exhibits of my students’ work at the Church Street Galleries, SID Professional Gallery and Ryerson Library and participation conferences and fund raising events.
In 2012, our collaboration expanded to include the design and fabrication of food and items carts At The Stop Night Market.
Professor Lorella Di Cintio recieves a senior award from Universidad Iberoamericana – the San Ignacio silver medal.
The medal acknowledges her dedicated service to teaching and experiential learning. Iberoamericana commended her for her efforts in developing the Global Exchange Studio and the signing of academic exchange agreements between Ryerson University and Universidad Iberoamericana.
The presentation occurred during the closing ceremonies of the fourth year presentations on the 12th of February 2010.
Wayne Tell us about your living situation.
“I’m receiving ODSP. I’m grateful for the support, but it also leaves me living below poverty line. Eating healthy for the entire month is really challenging, in not impossible. In the last ten days, I’ve been scrambling around, because I’m out of food. Food is the number one
issue in my life. the money we get is glaringly not enough.”
How much money do you spend on food?
“Half of my money goes to food. for the first few weeks I’m spending
about $100.00, and then it runs out and I have to use food banks.”
Do you ever use food banks drop-in meal programs?
“I quality for one food bank in my catchment area [where you can get an emergency 3-day food supply once a month]. I’ve dropped into six other food banks, but they only let you go once if you’re not in their catchment area. And when you do to the food bank you’re already hungry, so you eat it all in 24 hours. When my food runs out in the
last week of the month, I have to come to the drop-in meals at The Stop every day for breakfast and lunch.”
Describe what it’s like to eat on your budget.
“It’s fine for two weeks at the beginning of the month. And then when it runs out it’s scary. Fear. Desperation. Just scrambling around trying to find something to eat.”
Where do you get your food? How often do you shop?
“I go to No Frills or Price Choppers, looking for deals. I shop 2-3 times a month.”
What factors influence what food you eat?
“I want to eat food I like, healthy food. I exercise and try to maintain my good health, but at the end of the month it’s impossible. The food I get at the food bank has no protein- just junk carbs. I gained about 5 pounds this week, from all the crap I had to eat.
What does food security mean to you?
“Food security means not going hungry. Food insecurity means: I’m hungry and I don’t have anything to eat. And I’m out of ideas of where to get it.”
What do you think the government should do to address food security?
“Increase the amount of money to people on social assistance. Or just increase the amount of food money. Food coupons for No Frills to food vouchers or something- anything. They have to ensure that we have enough money for food.”
—
Linda Chamberlain Tell us about yourself.
“I’m Linda Chamberlain. I work part-time as a Peer Counselor at CAMH. I’m on
ODSP but they take out half of my check because I work, and the other half goes
to rent. I moved into my home in TCHC (Toronto Community Housing) in 1996-
before that I was living on the street and in hospitals for over 30 years. Just
having a roof over my head has helped me so much, given me so much courage,
I feel like I can do anything now.”
How much do you spend per week on food?
“I don’t go by the week. At the beginning of the month, I pay my rent, my hydro,
and my phone bill. After that, I, maybe, have $100.00 leftover, and whatever is
left I use for hygienic products and food. by the end of the month, I have
absolutely no money left, and I am living completely off the food bank.
I am one step behind on my bills all the time. I used the food stipend you gave
me for this photo project to pay my late hydro bill. There’s never enough money
to buy food.
Describe what it’s like to eat on your budget.
“I eat potatoes- it’s all I can afford. In the morning I have fried potatoes with
onions. For lunch I have boiled potato dumplings with flour and paprika- that
gives it some flavor, and they fill you up. For dinner I have mashed potatoes maybe
I can put a can of pineapples or corn on that if I get one from the food
bank. I get full on the food I eat but it’s all starch. I can’t go to bed with my stomach
growling, so I eat cookies from the food bank before I go to bed. I’m diabetic and
that makes my sugar go up, but it’s the only food I have, and it’s the worst thing
in the world to go to sleep with your stomach growling. If I could bring my sugar down, the doctors said I might be able to reverse my diabetes, but if I don’t turn it around, they said it will kill me. They’ll pay for pills to get my sugar down, but they won’t give me any money for healthy food. it would be so nice just to have real food- all I want is lettuce and some vegetables.”
Do you ever access food banks or drop-in meal programs?
“I started a food bank in my building four year ago. Every two weeks we get a
delivery, and anyone from the building can come down and take whatever they
need. But the food bank just gives junk, there’s never any healthy food, no
vegetables. There were three kinds of icing and cake mix at the food bank today,
but no milk or eggs to make a cake with it. They give us syrups and vinegars, but
never any food to put them on.”
Where do you get your food? How often do you shop?
“Every month I buy a bag of potatoes, some onions, a bag of flour. Almost
everything else I have I get from the food bank downstairs. Occasionally I try to
afford something in Chinatown.”
What do you think the government should do to address food security?
“We don’t need more food banks- all they have is junk food. We need money to
buy our own food. They’re paying a lot more money on our hospital bills because
all of us are getting sick off of this diet. They haven’t raised our checks in years,
even though the prices of food and rent keep going up and up. Food costs more
now, but we don’t have any more money, so we just don’t eat.”
To learn more about this issue or to get more involved, visit www.thestop.org
What the World Eats, Part 1, What’s on family dinner tables around the globe? Photographs by Peter Menzel from the book “Hungry Planet”
There are two social assistance programs in Ontario. One is called Ontario Works, and one is called Ontario Disability Support Program.
What is Ontario Works?
Ontario (OW) is the income support program of last resort for people without paid employment. It is an emergency program intended to support people when
something goes seriously wrong in their lives, and to help ensure that they do not fall through the cracks. Because of the high cost of childcare in Ontario, some
single parent families are forced onto OW until their children are school age.
Monthly income for a single person in Ontario Works (which must cover rent, food and all other expenses): $572.00
What is Ontario Disability Support Program?
Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) is an income support program for people who are unable to maintain full‐time employment die to a medical condition. For
people with disabilities in Ontario, ODSP is often the primary source of income for many years.
Monthly income for a single person in Ontario
Disability Benefits: $1020
Recent History of social Assistance in Ontario
In 1995, the provincial government under Mike Harris cut social assistance rates
by 22% and then froze them, until the Progressive Conservative Part was voted
out of office in 2003. Today, these cuts, combined with increases to the cost of
living, mean that welfare benefits have been eroded by approximately 40% since
1995.
Under the current Liberal government, social assistance benefits have been
increased incrementally each year. However, according to economist Jim
Stanford, even with the announcement of a 2% increase to social assistance in
spring of 2008. Ontario’s most disadvantaged citizens are still further behind
where they were when the McGuinty government was first erected in 2003.
In 2004, anti-poverty groups and health provider in Ontario, concerned by the
devastating health issue faced by people on social assistance without enough
income, began to organize to fight for people’s health. They mobilized to help
people on social assistance access a little known benefit called the Special Diet
Allowance. The Special Diet Allowance is a benefit that provides additional
assistance to people who require a special diet as the result of a medical
condition. To quality, people on ODSP or OW must already be sick and have the
feed for a diet prescribed by a qualified medical practitioner.
While some people continue to receive Special Diet Benefits to treat conditions
for very serious medical conditions, the government has taken steps to change
the program and limit its benefits. These changes are currently being challenged
before the Human Rights Tribunal. Meanwhile, a; recipients of social assistance
continue to be at risk of illness due to poverty.
People who experience chronic food insecurity and a lack of access to a healthy
diet from numerous negative efforts on their health, including higher risk of
chronic illness, depression, heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure.
This is why public health units across Ontario are asking the government to
increase social assistance rates to begin to address chronic cycles of poverty in
this province and prevent sickness.
As a first step, the campaign to Put Food in the Budget is asking for $100.00
monthly increase as a kind of healthy food supplement for all adults on social
assistance. Public health officials view this amount as a down payment toward
establishing adequate income supports that are based on the real cost of living
and that enable people to purchase healthy food.
Where can I find out more information about this?
To learn more about this issue or to get more involved, visit www.thestop.org
