Dr. Christa Liedtke is Professor of Industrial Design | Sustainability in Design at the Folkwang University of the Arts. In this three-question interview, she explains how she has experienced the last few weeks and how the corona crisis is affecting sustainability.
I've been working from home most of the time, but I've been traveling more virtually and internationally than I could have done while traveling. My days are filled with video conferences from morning to night - my head is buzzing. I've organized a few webinars. That was very exciting, as I can reach more students, universities and interested parties at the same time, who can join in, for example. My block course at Folkwang had to be postponed as it should have taken place right at the start of the restrictions. The important final exams were also postponed. Last week, we were able to hold the first real exams again - with all the necessary hygiene measures and without any other participants. On the one hand, that was great - finally some normality again and the students' wait was over. On the other hand, it was a very strange feeling to be four people spread out in the lecture hall.
Sustainability is a precautionary and resilience strategy, as it focuses on preserving the resources of nature, people, society and the economy in the here and there - i.e. locally and globally, in the now and tomorrow. If these are kept in balance, the risk of not being able to react to unforeseen crises is of course not reduced to 0%. But it does give us time and opportunities to react better to the unforeseen. A sustainability strategy is therefore something like a precautionary and risk management system for nature and people.
In recent weeks, we have seen how important creativity and the ability to redesign are for overcoming such crises. Everyday life has had to be reconstructed everywhere - people have done immense things: systemically relevant professions, parents and much more. These are skills that designers also have or learn. So if sustainability is an important prerequisite, then designers are the change agents who help to shape this by bringing people's ideas and hopes or their own into the world as objects and structures in order to make them tangible and experienceable. Especially in the near future, people and societies will need such images and experiences in order to gain a foothold and structures in reconstructed everyday life.
The interview was conducted for Folkwang University Communications,
Kristina Schulze