Design Narratives and the White Spatial Imaginary
- Becky Nasadowski (author)
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| Title | Design Narratives and the White Spatial Imaginary |
|---|---|
| Contributor | Becky Nasadowski (author) |
| Landing page | https://adocs.de/en/buecher/design-theorie-praxis-open-accessebooks/attending-futures-matters-politics-design-education-research-practice |
| License | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ |
| Copyright | Becky Nasadowski |
| Publisher | adocs publishing |
| Published on | 2023-10-01 |
| Long abstract | Graphic designers are ideological storytellers, often creating signs and symbols that help reproduce the material and affective economies of neoliberalism. Recently, scholars across varying fields have shown an interest in the aesthetic components of gentrification, but the role of the graphic designer has yet to be explored in depth. I argue graphic design not only plays a role but is a logical contributor to gentrification in the US, helping to reproduce what George Lipsitz (2011) refers to as the white spatial imaginary. To frame the designer’s complicity in the violence of gentrification, I will begin by exploring professional design culture’s embrace of diversity as a commodity and its enthusiasm for entrepreneurialism. Then, with two case studies of gentrified US neighborhoods—the East Austin neighborhood in Austin, Texas, and the Logan Square neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois—I will examine verbal and visual rhetoric produced and deployed by designers that helps (re)define racialized boundaries. Studying both professional design discourse and design in situ enables us to more clearly see how designers exploit ideological narratives as a public pedagogy to, consciously or unconsciously, participate in the rationalization, justification, and perpetuation of the white spatial imaginary. |
| Page range | pp. 219–229 |
| Print length | 11 pages |
| Language | English (Original) |
| Funding |
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Becky Nasadowski
(author)Becky Nasadowski is a designer, educator, and researcher seeking ways to intervene in the design field’s liberal, often business-oriented, approaches to social justice. She works toward a design pedagogy that embraces existing research from humanities disciplines and directly engages questions about power, oppression, and histories of violence. Select publications include an experimental book with Heath Schultz titled i hate war, but i hate our enemies even more (Minor Compositions, 2019) and the essay “On Design Pedagogy and Empty Pluralism” in the collection Feminist Designer: On the Personal and the Political in Design (ed. Ali Place, MIT Press, 2023). Nasadowski has an MFA in Design from the multidisciplinary program at The University of Texas at Austin and is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.