A line of sight can be understood as an imaginary line from the eye to a perceived object.
The curators contend that during the years of 2020 and 2021, our Lines of Sight have shifted onto transient, ever-changing trajectories of perception. The uncertainties of the present relegated most of us to a zone of spectatorship. While our near futures appeared unfamiliar, discomforting and distorted, the pandemic also put some things in sharp focus.
Lines of Sight 2021 documents, curates, and exhibits the pluralities in our unique ways of seeing as design students, practitioners, and as an institution.
As remote learners and teachers we have spent most of the past year as nearsighted beings, living in tele-worlds. The act of seeing becomes more significant than ever. It has to be thought of anew to develop active seeing, active listening, thoughtful reflection and careful action. As designers we are, in fact, learning to see again; by slowing down our processes, taking time to reflect and showing care in our actions.
Lines of Sight draws parallels between the process involved in a single project, the collective praxis of the institution, and the ways of seeing how our work impacts the world. We started off by looking at the micro perspective of the journey followed in a single project, and offered the Lines of Sight questionnaire as a tool for reflecting on the process of an individual practitioner–
What were the intentions, inquiries and aspirations that you started this project with?
INSIGHT
(Research | Learnings | Process)
What were your key findings and learnings?
How would you situate your project and reflections in the current state of affairs?
What did you see and DO differently?
Looking back, are there things you would have done differently?
How do you envision the directions this project could go to, in the future?
How do you see this project shaping your design practice in the future?
FORESIGHT
(Intention | Expectation | Brief)What were the intentions, inquiries and aspirations that you started this project with?
INSIGHT
(Research | Learnings | Process)What were your key findings and learnings?
How would you situate your project and reflections in the current state of affairs?
HINDSIGHT
(Review | Reflection | Introspection | Extrospection)What did you see and DO differently?
OVERSIGHT
(Redo | Recontextualise | Redefine)Looking back, are there things you would have done differently?
FARSIGHT
(Speculative Design | Future Scope)How do you envision the directions this project could go to, in the future?
How do you see this project shaping your design practice in the future?
As projects kept coming in, our lines of sight shifted from individual inquiries to collective ones, identifying emerging contexts and themes which are shaping the design practice of young designers. Foresight became more about the act of envisioning the paths to reaching an outcome or solving a problem. Projects which set out with goals in mind- including but not limited to Sustainable Development Goals, technological innovations, and social design projects were situated in Foresight.
Insight showcased the potential for design as an epistemic process, with projects looking equally into design research and design practice and highlighting pluralistic ways of knowing and doing. Hindsight became the sight/site for reflecting on histories, archives, craft, and projects that consider holistic ideas for restoration along with narrative-driven projects that draw from all of that.
No person, project, or process is perfect, and this was a year of working around imperfections and rough edges left by displacement, loss, and grief. We started Oversight with the intention of looking into what we missed out on because of this displacement, but over time, we realised that we had been overlooking certain fallacies in the systems we operate within. Exploitative power structures and the inclusion of marginalised identities were the result of oversight, which we as designers are often complicit in, along with overlooking concerns of mental health and well-being. The Oversight track also investigates these systemic oversights.
We conclude with Far-sight, on an optimistic note, speculating on futures that are ecologically sustainable, inclusive of all identities, and egalitarian, through artefacts and projects that challenge our perception of the normal and ask difficult questions which are essential for envisioning the futures we dream of.
Insight showcased the potential for design as an epistemic process, with projects looking equally into design research and design practice and highlighting pluralistic ways of knowing and doing. Hindsight became the sight/site for reflecting on histories, archives, craft, and projects that consider holistic ideas for restoration along with narrative-driven projects that draw from all of that.
No person, project, or process is perfect, and this was a year of working around imperfections and rough edges left by displacement, loss, and grief. We started Oversight with the intention of looking into what we missed out on because of this displacement, but over time, we realised that we had been overlooking certain fallacies in the systems we operate within. Exploitative power structures and the inclusion of marginalised identities were the result of oversight, which we as designers are often complicit in, along with overlooking concerns of mental health and well-being. The Oversight track also investigates these systemic oversights.
We conclude with Far-sight, on an optimistic note, speculating on futures that are ecologically sustainable, inclusive of all identities, and egalitarian, through artefacts and projects that challenge our perception of the normal and ask difficult questions which are essential for envisioning the futures we dream of.