Places, like people, move; they are made up of constellating material and human trajectories that are in constant motion and relationship with other places. But this understanding of place is mostly absent from formulas for designing sustainable and equitable futures. Instead, calls for relocalization as a means to mend the effects of globalization can often perpetuate systemic inequity through isolationism. My research as doctoral candidate at Carnegie Mellon University develops and advocates for an understanding of places as relational and locomotive, and develops design processes that can better distribute wealth, in its many forms, amongst places.
Read my full dissertation proposal via Medium -
https://uxdesign.cc/place-to-place-designing-for-relationality-a25f1c1a15d6
*Read about my participation as a Humanity in Action and Alfred Landecker Democracy in Action Fellow.
Recent Articles -
Design for Place Matrix
November 2019 | Design Theory via Medium
https://medium.com/research-for-into-through-design-ing/design-for-place-matrix-9914498f52bf
Shelter Out of Place, Histories of Home
April 2020 | Transition Design Seminar via Medium
https://medium.com/transition-design-seminar/shelter-out-of-place-histories-of-home-75b5d9eb15dc
Questioning Home and Belonging
February 2020 | Transition Design Seminar via Medium
https://medium.com/transition-design-seminar/questioning-home-and-belonging-752381a039e
Subject: ¡Oye! | Listen up! | @dintransition Podcast
To: Design listeners / Diseñoescuchas,
We are so excited to announce the launch of Season One of Design in Transition podcast today! / ¡Estamos muy emocionados de anunciar el lanzamiento de la primera temporada del podcast Diseño en Transición!
Our team of doctoral researchers in Transition Design at Carnegie Mellon University has been hard at work throughout the last few months creating this new Spanish/English bilingual podcast / Nuestro equipo de doctorandas de la universidad Carnegie Mellon ha estado trabajando arduamente estos últimos meses en la producción de un nuevo podcast bilingüe en español/inglés.
We interviewed over 10 interdisciplinary change makers from around the globe to discuss transitions in design theory and practice towards more sustainable and equitable futures. Our guests include Mariana Salgado / Devon Powers / Adrià Garcia i Mateu and Markel Cormenzana / Shannon Mattern / Micah Blumenthal y more… / Entrevistamos a más de 10 generadores de cambio interdisciplinarios, alrededor del mundo, acerca de las transiciones del diseño, en la teoría y práctica, hacia futuros más sostenibles y equitativos. Nuestrxs invitadxs incluyen a
Subscribe, review and be the first to listen and interact with Season One of our podcast iTunes | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Anchor | RSS / Suscríbete al podcast y sé de lxs primerxs en escuchar e interactuar con nuestra primera temporada
Follow us as we announce the release of each episode via twitter and instagram and tell us what you think or suggest next guests and topics / Mantente al tanto del lanzamiento de cada episodio a través de Twitter e Instagram y comenta lo que piensas o sugiere próximxs invitadxs y temas.
¡Qué viva la transición!
Your hosts/ Sus anfitrionas,
Marysol Ortega Pallanez, Silvana Juri, Erica Dorn, Sofía Bosch Gómez + audio production by Thomas Youn
No outer teaching will affect human progress as much as our common interest in learning from one another. It is now a time for us to draw from the deep pool of our collective creative energy to craft a future to which we can all belong.” - Michael Jones
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I design and facilitate workshops and learning experiences around the world, in virtual and in-person settings. Each experience intends to support an ethic of love, in relationship to ourselves, each other and the earth.
As a lifelong dancer, I often embrace emergent, participatory and movement-based design to allow for maximum amount of relevant content to arise from the group — with a high degree of flexibility to optimize for unearthing individual and collective wisdom. With this in mind, I hold space for every voice to be heard and acknowledge the teacher and the student in each of us. Without an invitation into emergent participation, the educational experience and outcomes are less relevant and timely to the unique needs of each participant. In embodied learning, we bring learning and awareness back to and through the physical state of being.
By designing education and community programs, that are often very place specific, we bring a shift towards bio-diverse collaboration - the emergent outcomes of which reach beyond what we can initially conceive.
When we look beyond the physical materials of a place we can observe that it’s the dialogue, interactions, exchanges, and collaborations between its people, diverse and often spontaneous, which make a place into a living ecosystem.
Here are some examples of gatherings and workshops I’ve developed and facilitate, always collaboratively.
*Read our final report during our work with the Barranquilla Chamber of Commerce.
Upcoming:
Past:
The Future of the Free Press at the New School - March, 2020 (New York)
Human-to-Human Interaction Design, Carnegie Mellon University - July 2020 (Virtual)
Community Canvas with Laboratoria, March 2019 (Lima, Peru)
Community Canvas with Barranquilla Chamber of Commerce - Jan - June, 2019 (Barranquilla, Colombia)
Building Trust and Belonging - A Community Canvas Workshop - March 16, 2019 (Houston, TX)
Products of Community - School of Visual Arts - Jan 2020 (New York)
Practical Futuring - February 4, 2018 (IXDA, Lyon, France)
Spiritual Nourishment for our Times - December 7, 2017 (NYC)
Home Economics at O+ Festival - October, 2017 (Kingston, NY)
Good Currencies - Multiple
Civics Class with Zephyr Teachout - June 8, 2017 (Kingston, NY)
The Future of Feminine - November 2017 (Ronciglione, Italy)
Food and Enterprise - Multiple (NYC)
Here are some of collaboratively developed and curated tools and resources from my facilitator toolkit:
Experience Design from the Value Web
“We are offering an open-ended possibility, a type of learning where one can feel part of an alienating world which separates and demonizes differences and diversity, systematically creating hierarchies where the poor suffer, animals and ecosystems are tortured, dominating so many diminishing, distracting, interrupting a real focus on the beauty which comes from life's deepest inherent relationships between all that’s diverse.” Lisa Jacobson
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The Good Work Institute’s mission is to cultivate, connect, and support a network of local community members who are fostering resilience and regeneration in the Hudson Valley.
This medium post shares my personal reflections on the process and learnings over a 3+ year period co-founding the Good Work Institute and designing and leading its core curriculum.
Curriculum, Words, and Videos
Written in collaboration, the Role of ‘Place’ in Human Centered Design, expands on our core design principle.
Good Work Fellowship Curriculum V.4
Good Work Fellowship Calendar
etsy.org Curricula
Good Work, as told by Fellows
Also check out my related work in Learning Experience Design
Some Press
Regenerative Entrepreneurship Podcast
Reimagining B School
The Real Bottom Line
GWI offered me the platform to deepen my relationship with the Hudson Valley and grow as a leader. It's the most meaningful professional or personal development program I've ever been a part of. - Ellie Kassner (3rd Generation Iron Worker and CEO of W.H. Kassner)
GWI is actively working to expand the network of people who can make much-needed mental, physical, and psychological shifts towards a new paradigm of healthy planet/empowered people. We can make small changes happen on the regional level and create examples for other regions. I have great hope in our country but now, I have even more hope, so thank YOU!!!!” - Caroline Fenner (Political Organizer)
“Before you disturb the system in any way, watch how it behaves. If it’s a piece of music or a whitewater rapid or a fluctuation in a commodity price, study its beat. If it’s a social system, watch it work. Learn its history. Ask people who’ve been around a long time to tell you what has happened.” - Donella Meadows
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I believe uplifting the wisdom of elders in our communities and fields of work is essential to a living future.
My post, Conscious Eldering and Relational Wisdom, shares some ideas and approaches for how to engage in work with elders and develop intergenerational communities of practice.
The inspiration to contemplate and develop intergenerational learning communities stems from lessons taught by mother nature, through traditions passed down through my family, remembering and learning indigenous principles and traditions, and through the work and mentorship of elders Judy Wicks, Michael Jones, Donna Schaper, and Lisa Jacobsen, among many others, and what my 92 year old grandmother often professes — that history constantly patterns and repeats itself.
A related new project is called the ‘shortnow’ - series of edited recordings I did with elders about time and the future can we found here - https://soundcloud.com/erica-dorn.
Related work and workshops I’ve designed and led:
Conscious Eldering - April 26, 28, 2018
RSA Skillshare - January 25, 2019
Council of Elders / Elders in Residence
Inspiration and related links:
BANFF center
Sage Arts
The Age of No Retirement
Elders Action Network
Last Chance is a ghost-town eighty miles east of Denver in the plains of Colorado. My father grew up in the basement of an old schoolhouse, turned cafe that my grandparents ran.
Years ago there was a brush fire in Last Chance and nearly everything burned to the ground, except for the old cafe. As a fifth generation Colorado from the plains of Eastern Colorado, I have a deep connection to the land and stories kept there. In 2017, I returned to Last Chance to uncover what remains in the decay. 'Last Chance' is play based, in part, on my family’s lonesome story running the Last Chance Cafe and what the future might hold for a place with a fleeting purpose.
The Last Chance Play’s first reading was held at Sunview luncheonette, a cooperative artist space in Greenpoint Brooklyn on March 18, 2019.
Plans are underway for an upcoming show in Last Chance, CO on July 27, 2019 - stay tuned!
Script Excerpt
A talk I gave recently about my inspiration to reimagine Last Chance.
Working in food systems finance for the microfinance institution, Accion, I administered financial capital to hundreds of small business across the service, agricultural, manufacturing, and retail industries. I served on the board of Slow Money NY to bring about a shift to more patient capital in our food systems. As a consultant and now advisor to Bernoulli Finance, I developed ethical growth strategies and helped to catalyze investments in slow food businesses across the US.
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During this time financing local food systems, I had the fortune of meeting skilled Mexican farmer, Gudelio Garcia, and teamed up with him as a dedicated volunteer. In 2015, Gudelio was cultivating a single-acre of land on one of the oldest farmsteads on Staten Island, NYC.
Through the Kickstarter campaign, we developed a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program that allowed New Yorkers to pay in advance during the winter for shares of the fresh Mexican produce like pipiche, epazote, and papalo in the spring.
The Kickstarter garnered significant attention and helped to formalize El Poblano Farm, as well as bring awareness and support to immigrant farmers who are helping to feed New York City residents.
Over three years we grew the CSA to 200 members, and the El Poblano was sold at three New York City Markets over 16 weeks in the summer.
Links and press
Kickstarter Project
Indigenous (New Yorker)
The Farm Report
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Related conferences and Panels
Food and Enterprise
What is Local?
Fund your Dream Project
Recorded Talks and Tutorials
Expert Tips on Crowdfunding
How to Crowdfund Your Business
Crowdfunding and Equity Finance
Affiliated Organizations
Slow Money NYC
El Poblano Farm
Bernoulli Finance
Portland (current) | New York (❤️) | Pittsburgh (phd) | Aurora, CO (raised)
