Studio & Entrepreneurship
This week’s interdisciplinary insights lecture helped with understanding the tools and ways of collaborating with people in many fields other than graphic design. The podcast with Louise Harris talks about her experience in being subversive in the projects she has worked on throughout her MA and sharing her process in consulting and investigating throughout her research. I learned a lot about not looking too far in finding interdisciplinary practices in your own community that can create a far greater challenge in making change for the people. So getting out to local events or networking with industry experts can lead to amazing causes that can make a lasting difference. I believe you could truly find a niche in an area of interest if you search and listen to the people around you to create collaborative tools and solutions for people to enjoy and be part of the bigger picture. This can really unlock a creative flair in a community if there isn’t one already where people have been too intent in what they have been doing no matter what the subject matter it is. A great opportunity to explore, create and enjoy some fun in socialising with different people to expand your horizon.
TYPE Talk, Andy Altmann (2012)
Why Not Associates co-founder Andy Altmann presents the creation of the comedy carpet at Blackpool Tower where he talks about the visual form of jokes, songs and catchphrases that was dated over decades of British comedy culture. The amazing work goes into detail about the collaborative development of creating this unique art form that brings joy and happiness to the public. The hard work and grit and grind of putting this marvellous carpet together had some challenges in itself but it was the collective input that made this happen.
How to make a brainstorming session most effective
Brainstorming I was told as of young to work on a sheet and create a spidergram with several ideas that come to mind. Through that method, I’ve always only worked with 3 or 4 ideas onto a sheet and thought to myself where I go from there. This method has been mastered over many years to expand further than a handful of ideas. Personally, I enjoy being articulate with my thinking and be more verbal in expressing my ideas and thoughts to talk to others about my thinking. I believe researching the most effective brainstorming techniques has shown me various methods that can be approached in making a brainstorming session a more exciting and fun way of coming up with ideas. Awkward silence, shying away, not being outspoken and many other traits can lead to people not sharing great ideas and reading through an article on the WeWork website showed some great techniques to remind ourselves to invite, collaborate, use tools and support others to contribute to a brainstorming session. You can evolve some of these techniques into your own method if you think any of them can be a bonus to your team and working with individuals to help motivate ideas into your session.
The tools and tactics successful museums use to attract new visitors
This article on Museum Next website describes the success of changing the way in drawing in more visitors to exhibitions in the current age when young generations might forget the importance of exhibition space. Museums and exhibitions are spaces for all ages and mental wellbeing in approaching a place of furthering your education and thoughtful process to enjoy the atmosphere of interesting artefacts. At a time when more than ever that people are more sociable than many years in the past is a key factor in how museums can attract the audience through tools that engage with visitors to interact and also when’s best to open. As these museums are usually opened from 9 – 5 every day for visitors to open, some have adapted to opening events in the evenings to help promote and encourage visitors to attend an exhibition of their choice. This can target those people that are too busy during the day to visit and those are more adapted to attend places in the evenings. These are some examples of how museums have had to adapt to change in their strategic planning to attract new audiences to their environment and exhibition events to get people to talk about the events. Digital and social media have played their part in this where the audience can share stories of their visits to help draw others to attend these events.
Loneliness and Isolation in people with disabilities
Over half of disabled people report feeling lonely, rising to 77% for those aged between 18-34 and recent changes in the welfare system aren’t providing the support that is needed to help those tackle the issue. Local support and social groups are not being funded in many communities to help those with disabilities connect and make friendship groups as we’re going through a pandemic at this time. It’s been an issue that goes undetected for many reasons for one loneliness and isolation isn’t challenged as a whole but a lot focuses only on elderly people. There’s plenty of evidence that young people with and without disabilities go undetected on how they feel isolated from society and we need to make more of an issue of this with keeping in mind that they’re just equally important as elderly people need the help.
This podcast by Emma Tracey on BBC Sounds has a great interview with award-winning bloggers, Elin Williams and Chloe Tear, and disability rights campaigner George Baker to find out their thoughts about loneliness in people with disabilities which is far greater than those who don’t have disabilities.
Sense is a charity for people living with disabilities and they campaign on the subject of loneliness and isolation which they believe is a huge issue. There is a lack of understanding and awareness of people living in isolation with disabilities as it’s an obstacle to making connections and forming friendships. They’ve suggested that 49% of non-disabled people feel that they do not have anything in common with people who are disabled and 26% admit to avoiding engaging in conversation with a disabled person. This is clearly an opportunity to make a culture shift in getting social groups to connect with each other regardless of their abilities to tackle isolation and loneliness, which can be an issue from working with colleagues to meeting a friend for an evening meal. It’s about getting people to talk amongst each other to build great friendships and be accepted in a social environment.
Workshop Challenge
I chose to focus on an area of isolation and loneliness for those with disabilities, which I believe with my evidence is an issue for many people across the UK. There is a great initiative in helping people in the community to connect with others who may benefit from some social well-being.
Vivek Joshi is a close friend of mine and has worked for many charities in helping people within their communities who have some form of disability. I took the opportunity to speak with Vivek about his experience up until now in making a difference in people’s lives.
I put together some notes to help me interview Vivek about his role working as a practitioner to help blind and visually impaired young people. Organising events to bring young people together in spaces to help build life skills and social awareness within their communities.
Audio Files
The conversation we had on the subject of ‘Loneliness and Isolation in People with Disabilities’ identifies the conversation around the subject matter.
The Interview – Loneliness and Isolation in People with Disabilities with Vivek Joshi
Final Cut – Edited Audio
Final Cut – Transcript
Paul Block 0:00
I’m Paul, and I’m going to be hosting a podcast. That’s even about reducing isolation and loneliness for people with disabilities, and also that are deaf and blind. So I’ve got with me, Vivek Joshi, and he’s going to just introduce himself as well to talk about himself just a little bit about him and his background.
Vivek Joshi 0:27
So I work with an organisation for blind and visually impaired young people. So it’s, it’s in London, I’ve been there about six years, and we put on different kinds of workshops for young people either losing their sight or with no sight. And they’re like, never really varied. So there’s someone confidence building or team building. And there’s someone like some workshops on practical skills such as like using your cane or learning to navigate your way around. And then there’s an element of it, which is like, focused, it looks on outside, like it’s just on fun, but it’s actually just creating experiences where young people can hang out together. And try and maybe in some ways, tackle some of the issues that you were talking about.
Paul Block 1:30
One of the questions I wanted to ask was, can you talk a bit about views on dealing with loneliness and isolation for people with visual impairments and will as well as disabilities like, like, what could be the the disadvantage moment with the current circumstances where we are being restricted due to the pandemic? Have you seen a decline in people’s motivation to try and socialise?
Vivek Joshi 1:55
Touching on something you actually mentioned in your like, introduction about travel? Right, so like, there’s loads of different reasons why someone might be more isolated. because of a disability or vision impairment. One of them is especially as you get older, when you’re young, you have to rely on your parents anyway, are getting older, is the independence of it, it’s not as easy to just go and find the bus stop, look at Citymapper or jump on a train, jump and the next bus, catch an Uber. So it’s like, a lot more difficult to be able to travel to places by yourself. So that is one barrier. Another barrier would have been for some people in mainstream schools that maybe they found it harder to make friends generally. Okay. Or even? Yeah, yeah. So it might be Yeah, it might be that they found it harder to make friends generally. Because they, you know, they maybe weren’t a maybe they were like, excluded. They were doing their work separately during school. Another thing I wanted to mention, like I don’t, so it’s something that’s changed massively, but when we’re talking about when we were in school is technology like, the way we’re recording this now is just super easy, but to have the means to do this 10 or 15 years ago, even would have been like, really, like really expensive equipment to think about doing something like this way. So technology, in some ways helps people stay connected massively, right. So they can have loads of little WhatsApp groups are chats and like forums and get some kind of community really helpful for people to stay in touch. But it’s also it might take away the motivation to try and learn how to travel yourself.
Paul Block 4:09
Yeah. How can how can we how can we try and tackle that? How can we progress that do you feel there is a need inspires others to make more social contact with people with disabilities and so on? One thing that comes
Vivek Joshi 4:26
to mind is there’s a difference between encouraging people with a specific disability to have a group of peers with the same disability or encouraging someone with X disability to meet people in wider society. Yes, If that makes sense. So there’s like, there’s probably some initiatives that are focused on getting all a bunch of deaf people together, aged between a certain age range, who live in a certain area. And then there’s probably initiatives that are trying to get same people integrated just into the community, the wider community. So yeah, just doing all kinds of different things. And I think there’s a place for both. Both are really important. So it’s probably important to have other people you can speak to, who have some of something like the same issues as yourself. So you can kind of share practical tips, or you can share motional support or just a yeah, just even just like know that you’ve got each other, you can ask questions. And then, but you obviously you don’t want them to just be shuts off as like, we’ve made a little group for these guys in society, you want people to also go on to other avenues.
Paul Block 6:19
So I’m just gonna just tap on a little bit about wellbeing. I think my next question. So what’s your thoughts on how we can help those with disabilities to look after their well being so encourage them in socialising, socialising, for attending events that may be within their local communities? So well, how can you notice if if there’s, if you see something in a person that doesn’t have the confidence in themselves? How can you build that up in them?
Vivek Joshi 6:49
Again, guess you would expect? It’s something that just happens over time, and it’s got a different timeframe for everyone. Some people, it’s no time at all, isn’t it? Some people, it’s a really slow process, you will see people really slowly become more confident. It’s, I guess, also taking part in these kinds of events. Where they have to overcome it’s like a big shared experience, maybe not as dinner but other other events. You know, there’s something to talk about, you’re overcoming something that you’re tempted to do. And hopefully, that like translates into other areas of your life, if you do it enough times, not realising that you can overcome things that you’re not comfortable doing.
Paul Block 7:50
This is all about building confidence. Really, isn’t it about loneliness and isolation? Because those relationships bond, and they stay for a long time. For those to stay a long time, then they’ll become a story of new beginnings, doesn’t it?
Vivek Joshi 8:06
Oh, man, yeah, absolutely. An ideal world, yeah, maybe well,
Paul Block 8:13
and that’s the ideal. And then from that, it’s kind of thing, it can create a whole network thing. So if one person makes a friend or two people, then over weeks, hopefully that becomes a network, not just with people with disabilities, but people then with that have not have disabilities. So they might have friends that don’t have disability, and then they can share, invite them to places that they might socialise with people that don’t have disabilities. And that then creates a whole new universe for him where people would like to talk amongst each other, but they accepted, and they’re welcome, and they’ll feel appreciated. And then they don’t feel lonely, and they don’t feel isolated because they’ve created a new friendship group over time. That’s where you kind of create those opportunities to, to expand their horizon and to talk about their life and their and what they share their abilities and what they disagree and what they agree with. Now that competent to be spoken about. Maybe that is the next thing is how do we get how do we, how is the people might have more dialogue in their, in their conversation, because that’s another challenge that you can look at. We could really talk about a lot about that, because that’s a whole confidence thing in itself, because some people might not be good getting words out. They can be very nervous. But yes, that that could be challenging yourself at times. And again, that’s maybe how we can overview people, inviting these people into groups, maybe bringing other people from social social groups as well to interact with people with disabilities. But those people like say ourselves, for example, we overlook it and we get them to me. We just kind of Like with the mediators in making that dialogue from yeah okay cool