As time passes, cities and civilizations evolve and develop. It has become increasingly crucial for our education to grow and catch up with the development of time. The way we perceive and retain information has now changed. Hence, there is a need to change from the colonizing method of assessment and teaching, not only design but also several other fields of technology, arts and society, which must evolve from a rather grade-based system to a more positively affirmative learning strategy.
What does it mean to Decolonize?
The generalized understanding of the term Decolonize, raises several questions, making it rather crucial to understand what it truly means. The word finds its understanding from the process of withdrawal of an oppressing country from another, taking away with them the Westernized culture that they choose to teach through the nation forcefully. Decolonizing represents several thought processes, one being the idea of the oppressed culture of the colonized country. The wave of Westernization hitting the country, sweeping away all the individuality of the nation itself, has also found its impact in design.
It begins with taste; what any designer perceives starts with their preferences. On several occasions, this has been impacted by what has been happening around them during that time. And also the trends the nation followed. While the designs were Westernized, so was the need to design with traditional motifs, and carving found its way to just being preserved. Slowing the understanding that conventional design was more complex and “not as good” paved the way for the Westernization of buildings. This belief of what is a “good design” and what is a “bad design” found its way into the education system. While there may not be several articles on this topic yet, an introductory would be as follows, with a history.
History of Design Thinking
Decolonizing design fundamentally means changing how the education system runs, ruling out racial biases and creating better products and experiences for everyone. As history explains, the British and the American academics set themselves to defining what the design process was, focusing on a rather “Human-centric design”. This paved the way for terms such as “design thinking.” Several designers and professors set forth to define the time, one of the most famous by Stanford’s Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design in the mid-2000s. It started the process of empathizing, defining, ideating, prototyping and testing. While many follow this process to date, others deny it and state it to be a rather strict process or instruction that lacks creativity, which must be the virtue of a designer. While there are several other processes, it is evident how decolonization would change, and its impact is a matter of more significant concern.
How to Decolonize Design
As understood, colonialism, capitalism and white supremacy have led to our current situation. In the past, several architects held The Project of Independence: Architectures of Decolonization in South Asia, 1947–1985, at the Museum of Modern Arts, which exhibited around 200 design exhibits consisting of several drawings, artworks, models, etc. from the countries of India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. It was curated by Indian architect Balkrishna V. Doshi, the only South Asian winner of the Pritzker Prize in Architecture, Minnette de Silva, the first woman to become a licensed architect in Sri Lanka, and Yasmeen Lari, the first woman to qualify as an architect in Pakistan. This exhibition addressed how architecture contributed to the decolonization of the countries. Several institutional projects and their impact on the social, cultural and political aspects of the nations, along with showcases of landmark buildings that symbolize India’s goal for the modernization of agricultural output, projects like Achyut Kanvinde’s Dudhsagar Dairy in Mehsana, India, and the Ceylon Steel Corporation Office Building at Oruwela are also on display. Hence, employing the region’s craft traditions to create experimental buildings, new architectural styles emerged that distanced the countries from their British colonial past. Attempts at decolonizing design have been showcased, but the process must begin from the roots: Design Education.
Decolonize Design Education
Keeping in mind the uniqueness of every nation and the impact of several social, cultural and economic factors, designs tend to change and evolve to cater to the needs. Decolonizing educational methods of instruction may involve:
- Producing non-influential and unbiased knowledge
- Challenging the stand of Western knowledge and withdrawing from their terms, leading to their creation of process and understanding.
- Questioning the knowledge and understanding of whether or not it overlaps with the nation’s cultural, political, and social aspects.
- Looking for alternative modes of knowledge production mostly outside the academy.
- Collaborative research and co-authorship of knowledge may teach the individuality of design among students.
- Experiential-based learning must be promoted as well.
- The grading process can be replaced by a system of pass/fail along and remarks for improvement.
While these are some minor understandings of how the education system can work, the country’s academics require a deeper understanding and research. The goal of decolonizing design educational and assessment standards is to place students—not only teachers—in the environment of their learning. It is a challenging, collaborative, and intergenerational enterprise that, even to begin, will need the unity and commitment of many communities, each of which has its own set of competing, sometimes conflicting needs and ambitions. For this reason, it is becoming increasingly crucial for the design community to come together on critical issues and implement changes in the country’s educational system for its future designers and architects.
References
- Khandwala, Anoushka. “What Does It Mean to Decolonize Design?” Eye on Design, 5 June 2019, eyeondesign.aiga.org/what-does-it-mean-to-decolonize-design/.
- Glover, Ellen. “Decolonizing Design, Explained | Built In.” Builtin.com, 17 May 2022, builtin.com/design-ux/design-decolonization.
- Stouhi, Dima. “MoMA Exhibition Explores the Architecture of Decolonization in South Asia.” ArchDaily, 10 May 2022, www.archdaily.com/981654/moma-exhibition-explores-the-architectures-of-decolonization-in-south-asia.
- Chatterjee, Anuradha. “Decolonizing Architectural Pedagogies.” India-Seminar.com, 2020, www.india-seminar.com/2022/750/750-ANURADHA%20CHATTERJEE.htm#:~:text=Decolonizing%20architectural%20pedagogies%20will%20involve%20questioning%20where%20knowledge.
