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Day 7: observing people interact with the intervention. 

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Day 6: one of the porcelain cups disappeared. 

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Day 5 of testing: we figured out why our cups kept being moved away. Next to our exhibition space was the cleaning corridor, yet we had been told that this corridor was not being used.

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Day 4 of testing: the blue wall had been painted and our exhibition poster was placed onto the shelves. 

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Day 3 of testing: the porcelain cups were placed back onto the shelves. It was unknown who had done this.

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Day 2 of testing: the porcelain cups were untouched. However the the plastic cups, which initially were on the left side, had disappeared. 

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Day 1 of testing: while we were away, all cups had been placed onto the shelves next to our intervention. 

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“Waste Rephrased” is an initiative of four students from the Design Academy in Eindhoven. When they first visited TAC, they noticed the lack of durable materials being used and the abundance of non-recyclable waste.

They decided to collect objects of waste from TAC and redesign them into infinite-use objects by using alternative materials. Two lines, one with the objects of waste and one with the objects that last, form an installation to spread awareness of this issue within TAC.

The residents of TAC can place objects of waste into this installation. These objects will then be redesigned into a durable version and placed into the second line, which in return the residents can take with them to be used.

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Conversations on why our porcelain cups were continuously placed on the shelves and why our plastic cups kept disappearing. 

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Reflection on day 9

Time to test!

The ninth class started with each group explaining their project, their prototype, and how they were going to test it today. Some people did not understand the aim of our intervention, making it clear to us that we had to think about how to communicate our idea. This indirect feedback was crucial to take into account for our intervention at TAC. 

We then had a meeting with Astrid, the Artistic Director of TAC. We shared the outcomes of our research at TAC and explained our intervention. She welcomed the idea and talked about several issues concerning waste and recycling which the organisation has faced over the past years. She also talked about the discrepancy between the values and behaviours of some of the residents. While most of the residents are left-wing and care about the environment, they simultaneously dump an abundance of non-recyclable waste on a regular base. 

After the meeting we divided tasks among the group. Bruno and Zoe outlined our exhibition space, while Kyran and I wrote the exhibition texts. The latter was a good exercise to think about the swarm of non-recycable waste at TAC, the aim of our intervention, and how we wanted to communicate the intervention’s purpose. We named our intervention “Waste Rephrased”, as it’s aim is to encourage the residents of TAC to think about waste in a more conscious way. 

In the following week, I went to TAC everyday to sit down and observe how people would react to and interact with our intervention. Yes, a participant observation!

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The start of the second mould - a paper/plastic bowl found at TAC

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The first prototype

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The first step towards the first prototype - a plastic cup found at TAC

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Reflection on day 7

Lecture on citizenship

During the seventh class we talked about citizenship, including T. H. Marshall’s theory on social rights. We discussed what it means to be a citizen and to have full membership of a national community. We examined the rights and responsibilities of a citizen as well as its boundaries, and defined citizenship as “to be a citizen entails the right to have rights.” 

I, however, had some difficulties with the naivity of this theory. It seems to blindly assume that rights are something absolute which every human being can claim. But unfortunately this is far from true for many countries. 

I also felt some adversity against the over-theorising of rights. There seems to be a significant discrepancy between the theory of rights and the implementation of these rights. It might be that on paper, citizens within a certain country have the right to justice. In practice, however, one can be prevented from implementing this right.

Prototyping

In the afternoon we started prototyping. Our objective was to design an intervention which addressed the abundance of non-recyclable waste at TAC. We took our ideas of last week as a starting point, and continued from there.  

Our idea was to collect waste objects at TAC and to make durable replicates of these objects. We played with the words plastic /  post-plastic, waste / non-waste, single-use / infinite-use. We wanted to represent these opposites through our intervention. 

We then had the idea to make plaster moulds of the waste objects we found. We could pour liquid clay or porcelain into these moulds to create objects that last. By positioning the original objects besides the new objects, the idea of waste / non-waste would become clear. 

In the following two weeks, we specified our idea and started making the first prototypes. We set out a clear schedule and divided the tasks within the group. Kyran was our head of communications, Zoe and I made the plaster moulds, and Bruno made the casts. 

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What can we as designers do?

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Who speaks? Who is silent? Who is objectified?