If you’re curious about what it’s like to be an industrial design student, this could probably sum it all up. My day undulates like a sine wave, fluctuating between superduperbusy and mundane, and back again.

You too can bask in the glory of attending meetings, working in illustrator for hours on end, and buying stickers of smiling milk cartons!

The article, written by Matthew Power for Slate’s ‘Dispatches’ section, did a good job of jostling my brain around and helping me to articulate some of my feelings about Insite and the homeless population in the Downtown Eastside. The DTES is a subject that a lot of people in Vancouver don’t want to discuss, are soured by, or simply pretend will all go away. The latter part of that statement is maybe the most troubling of all, because whenever a majority becomes deliberately ignorant to the plight of the minority population, social stability begins to crumble as a whole.

The service that a place like Insite provides to the already-marginalized population of drug users in the DTES should be difficult to criticize, but the critics exist both online and off, and in numbers larger than I could ever fathom. The article in Slate, and its subsequent commentary, cemented the last brick in my mental wall of defense for the users of Insite, and the greater population of the DTES. I can’t possibly find any reason why it would be helpful to dismantle social services like safe-injection sites, or the free distribution of clean rigs for shooting up. Doing so will only cause more harm, and more death.

Supporting a system that helps drug addicts to stay safe is one of the first steps towards de-marginalization. The most important element of care is awareness, and as Insite saves lives, it sends a message to the community that people are being given the ability to live. Insite is not an advocate of drug usage, if anything, it’s an advocate for the safety and security of every person living in Vancouver. As we provide care to the most marginalized citizens of our city, we are also caring for ourselves and future generations. If we re-define what it means to be criminal, fewer people will languish in prisons on charges of drug possession. If we give addicts the option to escape dangerous environments, we will see a significant reduction in the number of deaths and drug-related homicides in the city.

This is part of the reason why I find it so difficult to criticize Insite, or anyone who is homeless or addicted to drugs. Maybe a part of my personality is just hard-wired to be empathetic, as I can’t help but feel that people deserve safety and shelter regardless of their social status. Having lived in the DTES and Hastings-Sunrise, I’ve witnessed first-hand how quick people are to harass or criticize their homeless neighbours, or to pretend that people are simply invisible just because they do drugs. That a person shouldn’t be considered equal, just because they do drugs or are poor, is such a foreign concept to me. This behaviour spits on the Canadian charter, and as well the United States bill of rights.

Vancouver is lucky to have a place like Insite, and the services provided therein. As long as Insite survives, people will be made aware that these problems exist in our beautiful and ‘most-livable’ city. Perhaps the grandest service that Insite provides is that heightened sense of awareness, which may lead to a realization for every person living in Vancouver that we need to lend a hand to our neighbours, and help them to thrive.

I posted this on my Grad Project blog, but I’d like to re-post it here for the crowd who hasn’t been following my schoolwork. So without further ado, here’s Gezellig:

How it works:

The quilt is made up of pockets with buttons, and static squares. One of the static squares has been outfitted with an array of LEDs, and one of the button pockets has been stitched with conductive thread. I sewed a circuit onto a separate piece of fabric, which leads into an Arduino that’s been embedded into a secret pocket in the quilt. When the button pocket is closed, the circuit is completed and the Arduino is programmed to tell the LEDs to pulse softly.

The button pocket.

Pulsing LEDs behind one of the static blue pockets.

How it helps lonely people:

The intent of the Proof-Of-Concept is to show how a ‘traditional’ medium can be updated with technology, and send a message to its users without being obtrusive or tacky. Quilts are, in my opinion, one of the best examples of a comfort object, and they tend to be treasured artifacts that carry a family’s story through multiple generations.

In context, this project would be kept in the home of a lonely, elderly person. When updated through social media by their family (that element is going to be detailed in the next semester), the quilt will be able to show a visual message to the user that they are being thought about, and loved. For people who are separated from their families due to distance or disability, having a visual reminder of their family can be a powerful motivator. The creative element of the quilt (putting photos or other nostalgic items into the pockets) should also help the user to get into a creative mood, sharing memories of their family with others and contributing to the personalization and customization of their quilt.

What’s next?

Next semester (Spring 2010), I plan on adding to the customization of the quilt in a number of ways: First, I’ll be working on the capacity of the user’s family to update the quilt via social networks such as twitter, flickr, and facebook. I’d like to aggregate information from the APIs of those services, so that family members can trigger reactions on their grandparent’s quilt through something as simple as tagging a photo, or using a #hashtag on twitter or facebook.

Second, I’ll be working on the visual elements of the quilt. I’d like for the static pockets to do something more than just pulse an array of LEDs. Though I felt like it was a good end-point for this semester, I’m not satisfied with the message it sends. I feel as though the message can become more complex without complicating the integrity of the quilt as both a medium and a metaphor. I’d like to figure out a way to incorporate either thermo-chromatic inks, or OLED panels so that the message can become slightly more tangible and ‘realistic’.

Third, I’d like to work on my craftsmanship and try to create an object that’s both technologically sound, as well as technically beautiful. Quilting is a timeless activity, and I come from a long line of smart women who have perfected their craftsmanship through quilting and needlework. Over the course of the next semester, I’d like to get my quilting to the point where I’m very satisfied with my quality of stitching, accuracy of layout, and create more complex geometries/patterning.

Since the day I heard that a TEDx was being organized in Vancouver, I’ve waited with gleeful anticipation to learn who would be speaking this year. But with all due respect to the organizers, I’m disappointed and offended by the lack of women in the line-up for this year’s TEDxVancouver, and it’s because of this lack of egalitarianism that I’m choosing not to apply to attend the conference. I’m not alone in this sentiment, and I know that there are other men and women who are choosing to abstain from applying, for the same reason.

This is my list of grievances:

As much as I respect and admire the current line-up, and I mean no ill-will towards any of the speakers, I’m left wondering why the list is so disproportionately dominated by men. Though I believe that the speakers chosen are all quite qualified and will provide great insight on their subject matter, I don’t think that the current line-up is an accurate representation of Vancouver’s best minds.

One-half of this city’s population is being represented by only one speaker out of ten eleven. That’s an embarrassing percentage, especially when Vancouver is brimming with brilliant women entrepreneurs, scientists, artists and visionaries. Why are women so under-represented at this TEDx conference? The main TED website states that the lineup of a TEDx event should include “diverse demographics, ethnicities, backgrounds, subject matter.” Ten men and one woman doesn’t seem to fit that standard.

TED is a globally recognized conference, and it would be folly to think that Vancouver isn’t currently in the spotlight as well. If the intent of TEDxVancouver is to reflect on our current flock of imagineers, educators and technologists, it needs to be a true facsimile of our population- not predominantly white, and male. This city is beautiful in part because of its diversity, and has been constructed by the convergence of ideas that span all sexes, ethnicities and backgrounds.

I hope that future iterations of TEDxVancouver will include more brilliant and capable women at the podium.

Respectfully yours,
Stephanie Vacher

“If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so we weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.”

- Margaret Mead

Last week I heard on the grapevine that there would be a free introduction to Processing class at Emily Carr, so I hopped on that. I’ve been absurdly busy with classes, work, and everything else, but it would have been stupid of me to not go to the two sessions offered by the ever-awesome code.lab artists-in-residence.

I’ve puttered around in Arduino before (which is built on the Processing platform) so I wasn’t too unfamiliar with the structure of the program, but I was totally blindsided by how super cool and visual this format is. I can’t wait until I can dig up some time to really stretch my capabilities.

A simple sketch I completed today: