VIRTUAL: Applying Education
Abstract
In this presentation, the author refers to the value and impact of multidisciplinary, community-based partnerships in design education. In particular, she explains the framework, design research approach, and results of a partnership between a professional design practice class and a local children’s hospital, from a participatory, horizontal, and socially-focused pedagogy perspective. In this collaboration, Child-Life Specialists, Graphic Design Students, and Computer Science students focused on exploring new ways to help small children understand the different steps of pre and post surgery procedures, including the role of nurses and doctors. Through play, the team addressed uncertainty and abstract concepts, using mobile technology and traditional/analog media. The author emphasizes the importance to reconsider this kind of high-impact projects beyond the limiting timelines of semester-based courses and explains how to engage multidisciplinary design teams for long time periods.
Gaby Hernández is an Endowed Associate Professor of Graphic Design at the University of Arkansas, originally from Costa Rica. Her expertise includes community-based design, visual storytelling, decolonial design, ethnographic research, identity and heritage in design. Her work has been disseminated extensively in the USA and internationally, in journals, professional sites, and conferences. Her most recent research and practice explore the role and meaning of everyday waste and contemporary materials to recapture and recreate visual memories from the past.
11:00 am - 12:30 pm
Thursday 27th April, 2023