In early 2019 my colleagues Cher Potter (V&A Museum/ University of the Arts, London) and Stuart Candy (Carnegie Mellon School of Design) asked me if I would contribute an article on the theme of ‘Design and Futures’ to the special edition of the Journal of Futures Studies they were guest-editing.

I wrote about SPACECRAFT, the sister project to African Robots, my engagement with street wire artists in Southern Africa, describing it as a Southern Interventionist Art Project. I was attracted to the project as a way of learning more about Futures Studies, a field I’d had some exposure to during my Masters at NYU almost 20 years ago, but knew little about. Futures seemed like an appropriate theme for a project which was futuristic in its content, and which intended to bring about a particular future scenario – a form of design fiction in real life.

I was working on our large-scale collaborative sculpture piece Dubship I – Black Starliner (2019) at the time, which combines a future vision with the recovery of the past – from technology outlined 800 years ago, to early 20th century activism, to late-20th century music – in the context of now. So there was particular resonance with the idea of futures.

The article is titled ‘SPACECRAFT: A Southern Interventionist Art Project’ in Volume 23 no.4 June 2019 of the Journal of Futures Studies. It is freely accessible online at jfsdigital.org ⁣⁣

And check us out on Instagram @spacecraft.africa

David Smith in the Guardian, 17 May 2011:

Why is South Africa still providing ‘apartheid toilets’?
How can a nation that builds five-star hotels and airports and hosted a successful World Cup still fail to provide decent sanitation?

… Like the Reverend Wright’s fiery sermons, or Gordon Brown’s “bigot” gaffe, unexpected bumps in the road can change the course of election campaigns, and so it is that televisions and newspapers in South Africa are full of images of toilets ahead of tomorrow’s local government vote. The image has come to symbolise the post-apartheid state’s continued inability to deliver electricity, running water, sanitation or housing to millions of people. It has left many wondering how a nation that can build five-star hotels and airports, host a successful football World Cup and enshrine human rights in its constitution can violate the basic right to defecate in private.

Toilets are the battleground between the two principal rivals for South Africans’ votes. The African National Congress (ANC), 17 years in power, has come to regard itself as the natural party of government with overwhelming support from the black majority. The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) – which controls Cape Town and claims it is the best-run city in the country – is striving to bury its reputation as the bastion of the white elite. First there was an open lavatory scandal in the DA’s backyard. Cape Town was condemned in a recent court judgment for building 50 unenclosed loos in the Makhaza section of Khayelitsha. The gleeful ANC claimed this proved what it had been saying all along: that the DA protects the privilege of Cape Town’s affluent suburbanites while kicking its township dwellers in the teeth. These were “apartheid toilets built by racist whites who don’t respect blacks”…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/17/south-africa-toilets-david-smith

Sophie Arie writing in the Guardian, 10 May 2011.

NGO package tours – holidays with a conscience?
A growing number of NGOs are offering package tours to developing countries so that donors can see their work in action.

…So is this the future for development agencies? To show people and not just tell people how hard life is for the poorest of the world’s population? And will this become the ultimate way for the discerning donor to decide if an agency deserves his or her support?

For some time, aid agencies specialising in child sponsorship have made ad hoc arrangements, despite the time and resources this demands of local staff, for individual donors to meet the child they support. Many also take major donors, board members and policy-makers on “immersion” trips. And many run volunteer working trips and fundraising adventure holidays…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2011/may/10/ngo-package-tours-holidays-conscience

Compare to my findings about the elastic membrane in my PhD.

A reporter for The New York Times posed the question to Japanese designer Shigeru Ban: “Katrina. The Asian Tsunami. Haiti. Every time a natural disaster of this order occurs, designers present innovative ideas for shelters that never get built. Why not?”

Shigeru Ban replied: “We don’t need innovative ideas. We just need to build normal things that can be made easily and quickly. A house is a house”.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/24/garden/24qna.html

See also paper in ‘Design for Need’ re. disaster relief.