AN EXCEPTIONAL COLLABORATION BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY AND DESIGN
As part of Lille Metropole 2020, World Capital of Design, philosopher Cynthia Fleury and designers Les Sismo present Maison POC Care, which focuses on links between health care ethics and design.
With an exhibition entitled “Care Climate”, care is presented as the contemporary basis for an ethical approach to design. This platform allows us to brainstorm new solutions to 21st-century challenges and reimbues design with lost meaning, creating a “drawing by design.”
Throughout the exhibition, health care ethics and design are addressed by concrete projects, tested in real life situations, in the Metropolitan area of Lille and elsewhere: in the fields of health, democratic life, economic and technological transformation, and in natural environments.
Cynthia Fleury and Les Sismo’s conviction is twofold: on one hand, direct experimentation through design allows us to act individually and collectively in Anthropocene, and on the other, “care is one of the best ways to live in the world”.
EXHIBITION LAYOUT
Care Climate exhibition is based on three themes: care for society, for individuals, and for the living. The exhibition begins by putting into context the historical connection between design and philosophy as a vehicle for solutions.
Then it becomes a question of flushing out what the climate of care actually is, through various experiments in vast array of fields. These projects solicit every sense and must be listened to, looked at, and even touched.
The City of Lille allows visitors to share their thoughts on care solutions that City’s agents have presented in a usability laboratory.
SOME CONTENT EXAMPLES IN THE EXHIBITION
Many experiments, POCs, and projects, will be showcased at Maison POC Care. These include:
- Reto Togni – Wheelchairs: The Swiss designer Reto Togni has created a wheelchair “The Reagiro” that offers greater freedom of movement to people with reduced mobility. Thanks to a mechanism that enables them to use the force of their bust to turn, the chair reduces demands on their hands and relieves strain.
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FeelGood Side by Daxon/Movitex: The Daxon/Movitex company based in Villeneuve d’Ascq specializes in mail order sales and has faced the constant challenges that plague the clothing sector and distance selling. Daxon/Movitex manufactures clothing for seniors and wanted to experiment with a new model. Their goal was less focused on delivering clothing than on travelling to rural areas to meet and care for their target population. The company set-up in communal spaces and offered activities in rather isolated villages. Daxon/Movitex also forged partnerships with locals and worked with the local community to provide a new model for elderly care. At the same time, the company moved into a shop in Lens for a year in a shop.
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Caisse Centrale d’Activités Sociales (CCAS) Roubaix – Home for Women: In Roubaix, CCAS observed that the Women’s Shelter was only a transitional space, where women in vulnerable situations were redirected to other places and multiple organizations. To change this, the CCAS reached out to designers and together they brainstormed a new place, safe and peaceful, where women could also share moments of conviviality and feel confident. The director invited about fifteen social organizations to create a permanent office in the building so that women would no longer need to travel from one place to another and that everything would be centralized in a single place, created by women for women. The new Roubaix Home for Women opened its doors last October.
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Signs of Sense – La Bulle Elix: People born deaf are the first to learn sign language, and when they surf the Internet, some words used online are new to them. The Elix bubble is an app that can be used with a web browser for real-time translation into French sign language. Click on a word and a video of a person translating the word into sign language appears. Similar to a dictionary, the hearing impaired can use La Bulle Elix to expand their vocabulary.
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Wheel of Care: Wheel of Care grew out of a collaboration between nurses and midwives who offer home care in the Brussels region. By riding electric bicycles, they favor a gentler form of transportation and a different approach to care: they devote more time to communicating with patients and they ensure the highest quality of care and treatments with fewer obstacles (such as gas, traffic, etc.) and lower costs.
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Eloïsa Perez: Eloïsa Perez is a graphic designer. She has done research on how we write letters and how teaching techniques and learning styles grapple with the written language in primary school. She has observed how children learn writing, pre-letters and letters, by mastering the shapes letters are composed of. Her aim is to use design to develop other ways of learning penmanship.
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Elise Morin: Artist Elise Morin has worked with the CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research) on the structure of plants whose leaves change color when radioactive particles are present in the soil.