Project R-8211

Health-Cultures: Healthcare and multiculturalism (Research)

Health-Cultures is a design project based on the intersection between design activism and participatory design. Through the design of a participatory and public presentation process, it intends to involve both the design field, the health sector, the citizen and the policy in a critical public debate on the health sector as an employment and care area. The project looks at the emergence of the health sector and how it further develops today - within the context of the growing multicultural society, the widening of the welfare state and the neoliberal context. We try to seize the health sector with an open eye, by treating the diversity of "health cultures" that intersect in an urban environment. The project aims to visualize the future vision of various actors in the health sector and from these different perspectives, together try to depict a future and diverse work and care area. Design aims to contribute to critical questioning and construction of socially important topics such as health. Projects such as Caring Culture: Art, Architecture and the Public Health of Andrea Phillips & Markus Miessen (2011) have shown that design and art can play an important role here. To initiate a critical debate through design around these themes, we use two strategies: the participation - with citizens, policy and designers - to visualize, question and redesign the health sector and present these reflections and designs to the outside world in (semi) public contexts such as hospitals, neighborhood centers or public buildings (such as City Hall, library) and in artistic / design contexts such as exhibitions and biennials. In the field of participatory design and presentation in the public space, in view of public debate, the consortium of partners has gained a lot of experience throughout the years.

01 January 2017 - 31 December 2018