Design Reparations is a unique form of collaboration between designers, indigenous and ancestral knowledge holders, design institutions and companies.
Ancestral knowledge holders guide designers in the way of living and designing of their communities.
Designers, in the spirit of reciprocity, lend their skills to causes in support indigenous communities existence and culture.
ANCESTRAL KNOWLEDGE KEEPERS
The importance of ancestral worldviews and way of living
Indigenous communities constitute only 6% of the global population, steward up to 80% of the world's biodiversity.
Worldwide, there are many traditional cultures that prioritise a relationship of respect and mutualism with nature and people.
Regrettably, the lives and cultures of these communities have been pushed to the brink of extinction and are continuously endangered, due to acts of systemic racism, oppression and climate change.
Design Reparations builds a global support networks of skilled designers, ready to support indigenous communities and their causes, and open to learn their ancestral way of living.
Ancestral knowledge offers learning systems, sciences, and practices that contribute to co-creating a future that benefits all beings.
Join Us!
You are representative of a indigenous or traditional community, you can join Design Reparations to:
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Share and bring awareness about your community's invaluable knowledge
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Find support and potential alliances for community causes and projects.
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Connect with kindred spirits committed to live in peaceful co-existence.
DESIGNERS
Designing the future that we want
Designers that want to contribute to more ecological and just futures struggle to find the opportunities to support worthy causes. At the same time, despite having a lot of positive intentions, Design is still relying on unsustainable practices, created in the context of industrial exploitative systems.
There are still insufficient practical opportunities to question mainstream design practice, get in touch with different worldviews and support meaningful causes.
Designers that are truly committed to creating ecological futures have the opportunity to get in relationship with people from ancestral communities around the world, learn their way of living and designing, re-discover practices that may belong to their own ancestors and traditions, while working on practical causes that support the existence and thriving of these communities.
Designers want to work on meaningful futures and learn ecological design practices.
Beyond Reparation, towards Relational.
Quote by Chief Ninawa Inu, of the people Huni Kui, from Acre, Amazon, Brazil, and Ambassador of the University of the Forest.
"A framework of justice is necessary in Western political contexts where we need to be intelligible and where we still need to be represented in our fight for reparations and restitution. However, this is only harm reduction work that addresses the symptoms of the diseases (colonialism and racism). The root of the fundamental existential problem is relational. The framework of justice is extremely limited because it is still based on separability and human superiority. It does not reflect the reality that everything is inseparable from each other."