Design Education as Activism, Advocacy, & Sovereignty – A Talk with Saki Mafundikwa & Sadie Red Wing

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It is time that designers in Africa stop looking out-side. They've been looking outward for a long time, yet what they were looking for has been right there within grasp, right within them." 

Saki Mafundikwa is a graphic designer, art director, and design educator. He is the founder of the Zimbabwe Institute of Vigital Arts (ZIVA) a design and new media training college in Harare. He has an MFA in Graphic Design from Yale University. His book, Afrikan Alphabets: the Story of Writing in Afrika, was published in 2004 and is the first book on Afrikan typography. He has been published widely on design and cultural issues and is currently working on a revised edition of Afrikan Alphabets which he hopes will be published in 2021. Saki leads workshops and lectures globally.

I never understood how design research can be conducting "design thinking" or "empathy" research when the majority of cultural perspectives are NOT acknowledged in the design curriculum." 

Sadie Red Wing is a Lakota graphic designer and advocate from the Spirit Lake Nation of Fort Totten, North Dakota. Red Wing earned her BFA in New Media Arts and Interactive Design at the Institute of American Indian Arts. She received her Master of Graphic Design from North Carolina State University. Her research on cultural revitalization through design tools and strategies created a new demand for tribal competence in graphic design research. Red Wing urges Native American graphic designers to express visual sovereignty in their design work, as well as encourages academia to include an indigenous perspective in design curriculum.

This lecture was part of the Civilization Design Lecture Series, in partnership with Design for America