In the Chronic Health exhibition, we show examples, processes and the results of an agile, responsible and learning mindset.
New collaborations
How do we ensure that we start moving and stay that way? A designing attitude teaches us not to look for the one best solution but to try out many different options. We make room and time for change. In that space, there is room to make mistakes, learn from them and try again. Experimenting makes us agile. It helps us adapt, let go of the old and familiar and enter into new collaborations. For example, a hospital and a housing corporation can explore the neighbourhood to grow in a new, shared role to support the vitality and health of neighbourhood residents.
Long-term
How do we make responsible long-term choices? Can we unlearn short-term thinking? On a societal level, a healthy body is of little use to us when it moves on a polluted, uninhabitable planet. At the level of the individual, the challenge is to make healthy choices today with a delayed, positive effect on our old age. Design helps us step out of the here and now and see things in the vista of the future that is yet to be coloured in.
Embracing diversity
How do we adopt an open and curious attitude? How do we learn from each other beyond our own framework? We take lessons from nature and the palette of people in society. Health presents different challenges for everyone, and not everyone has the same opportunities. Fully embracing diversity requires us to avoid picking just one route to achieve health. In this way, we imagine what it is like to live with a chronic illness or what access to care looks like when you experience financial stress. We form a learning context in which we embrace polyphony and build on each other.
In this Chronic Health exhibition, we invite you to adopt different perspectives and attitudes. In the in-depth programme, together, we can practice the design mindset so that we can move step by step towards chronic health.
Image: Homo Ludens, © Katrin Korfmann c/o Pictoright Amsterdam 2022
