PhD student gives talk on role of design in cultures

http://www.theborneopost.com/2012/10/18/phd-student-gives-talk-on-role-of-design-in-cultures/

 Posted on October 18, 2012, Thursday

TRANSFERRING KNOWLEDGE: Reitsma showing the beadwork piece she made while carrying out her PhD project in Pa’Lungan.

KUCHING: The Sarawak Museum Department yesterday organised a Heritage Talk where speaker Lizette Reitsma spoke on the topic of ‘Preserving Traditional Knowledge’ through her PhD project, which aims to explore the role of design interventions as modes of oral history transfer between younger people of indigenous communities.

The PhD student at the School of Design at Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, who has an interest in designing for cultures, said that the project would take a design-led approach, aimed at carrying out research through designs.

The project, she said, can be as valuable for the communities as for the research and was also aimed at building an empathic relationship with the participants of the research, in order to fully be able to design for their needs, wishes and fantasies.

In view of this, Reitsma visited three different communities in Sarawak, namely Ba’kelalan, Long Lamai and Pa’Lungan, in order to explore their ideas on the proposed project.

“Several design objects were used during these visits in order to get to know the community as well as to explore the possibilities,” she said.

“Two of the three communities namely the Penan community in Long Lamai and the Kelabit community in Pa’Lungan seemed very enthusiastic about the project where I documented some of the activities that included photo taking by the communities and transferring of knowledge from one generation to another such as knitting and beading.”

She added that the project was also aimed at discovering whether the communities saw the project as beneficial for themselves.