Identity and diversity: different ways of being-in-the-world - a London Festival of Architecture event

The Cass has been working with The DisOrdinary Architecture Project over the last two years, to co-explore how we can open up the multitude of different ways of being-in-the-world to students, both as a potential design generator and as a key part of personal development. DisOrdinary is a platform bringing together disabled artists and built environment/design students, educators and practitioners for creative dialogue and action.

The exhibition will present student projects with disabled artists, on prototyped co-partnered activities that were funded by Arts Council England. They include making ‘soundmarks’ and other kinds of body mapping; doing audio-descriptions as a way to look more closely at the world around us, as well as understanding more about how blind people experience space; and the production of “objects that act in the spaces between body-identity and the wider world”, such as masks and/or body extensions.

At the exhibition a film that records and reflects on the process will be shown, with a discussion on our experiences of the project. Here, identity and diversity are understood as complex but vital aspects of design making; with projects aiming to help foundation-level students creatively and critically engage with their own and others’ multiple identities.

Image: Encounter Mapping by Yasmine Rajab
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