In March 2022, I delivered a talk called Boundaries where I discussed various uses of the word and how it relates to design and the commons. I introduced the practice of Design for Commoning – a transformative process attempting to change the economic system that the citizens involved are a part of. It’s a way of reversing the conventional role of design as part of mainstream capitalism by reconfiguring everyday lives and finding new forms of economic production.
At the end of the talk I show example maps that feature boundaries in some form or other, whether it’s about exclusion, what’s hidden/not seen, a single person’s version (or bias) of events, the boundaries of a network, a specific territory or temporality.
I asked students to complete several mapping exercises, firstly to map where they have seen interdependencies in their day and secondly, to map aspects of their current MA projects.
Sustainability cannot be of some things and not others; it can countenance no boundaries of inclusion and exclusion
Tim Ingold