- AUG 15-23, 8:30-8:45am Daily
Presented by:
Visit the EMI website every morning at 8:30 am (PST) during the Seattle Design Festival!
Team: Lisa Ehli, Brandon McNerney, Randy Larsen, Laura Salmela, Toby Wong, Nathaniel Gundersen
Come with us and step into a space of reflection – a space of communal pondering to look for a bigger picture, a broader understanding of who we are.
Understanding the story of our time is an invitation to a journey of reflection. If time is always pushing us forward, what does it mean to stop, and to listen?
The response of designers, artists, and thinkers is so often seen in the context of the space we fill, and the things we create. What kind of space will we uncover in the depths of our attention and reflection?
As the effects of the pandemic ripple across the globe, we are coming face to face with our inexorable connection through the problems that lie hidden and ignored. From the climate crisis, to rising inequality, to the systemic racial injustice at the foot of our crumbling social cohesion; the pandemic is shining a clear light on the existential issues running underneath the fabric of our globalized world.
We are not in the same boat, but we are all going through the same storm. Life accelerates for some, while others have been forced to slow down. In the midst of all this, we are re-evaluating how we might have misplaced our priorities, our values, and our relationship with time. What does it mean to take time and to what do we give time? How do we understand the story of humanity, of our similarities and our differences? How do we understand the spaces we create in light of the situation that surrounds us? How do we reconcile our past, understand the urgency of our present, and envision what is possible for the future? How do we see ourselves in the other, and remember that we belong to each other?
In response to the situation before us we have created a series of guided meditations, conversations, and personal stories encouraging collective empathy, self-reflection, and thoughtful action on our current moment and the inextricable challenges facing us. We will be exploring topics such as the breath, mental health, history, homelessness, the ecological crisis, and more. As part of a collaboration with the voices of designers and artists across the globe, we will thoughtfully engage our minds to explore and consider solutions to collectively address the deepest questions we face.
How do we learn to see the ‘other’ during this crisis, who exists both in our local community and across the globe? Then, how do we understand the nuanced consequences of our actions, at both a local and global scale? And finally, how do we take this into our lives as we go forward?
We can use our unique privilege as designers to effect change. If time is always pushing us forward, what does it mean to stop, and to listen?
We will be including visual materials to go along with the audio stream, so that audience members can also read along with the program experience if they choose to.