International connections

Claire Dufour is a freelance programmes producer working with Creative Dundee. She tells us how her work in the city recently took her to Bandung, Indonesia

In my job, I coordinate Make/ Share, the free monthly event that gives people insight into the work of others from a mix of creative, science, social and technology backgrounds. I also work on projects such as Fabric Dundee which helped to strategically develop the future of the creative sector in the city, and Boost by Design which supported 13 of Dundee’s social enterprises in developing their understanding of service design, digital innovation and community building.

Last month my job took me further afield to Bandung, the capital of Indonesia’s West Java province. I was there to represent Dundee at the DesignAction.bdg conference and to explore the culture of an incredible city.

Bandung and Dundee are very different in terms of scale and their social challenges, with populations of 2.4 million and 150,000 respectively, but the two cities have a lot in common. To begin with they both attract a large student population and work hard to develop themselves as innovative hubs for creativity and entrepreneurship, with a people-first, design-led approach.

DesignAction.bdg is a two-day conference that brings creatives together to find innovative solutions for urban issues like city pride, collective identity, connectivity among citizens and government, and the development of cross-sector partnerships. It is organised by Bandung Creative City Forum (BCCF) with full support from Bandung Municipality.

Representatives from the government, private sector, academia, local communities and the media are encouraged to develop various projects centred around quality of life in the city.

The programme aims to produce recommendations that can be applied as real solutions for current challenges faced by the city – often not requiring large scale budgets or infrastructure.

An example is Naaradewa, Don’t Feed the Monsters, a campaign aimed at reducing pollution in local rivers by Sembilan Matahari, a multi-use design studio based in Bandung, which explores new approaches and collaborations to increase public awareness on environmental issues.

“Don’t Feed the Monsters” means don’t litter the river which gives life to bacteria causing germs to create disastrous “monsters”. Using murals and graffiti, site-specific art installations and public place projections, the Naaradewa campaign aims to instil an emotional connection between the people and their river and a sense of empathy and responsibility towards its welfare.

In Dundee, we’ve been running a project called Culture Connects in collaboration with Place Partnership, to measure community engagement with what the city has to offer.

Using a physical map of the city and asking people to highlight their favourite places and how they spend their perfect day, we aim to understand what culture means to people without using words like “culture”, “creativity” or “design”, and encouraging them to think about what really matters to them.

The tangible passion many people have for our small city is one of the striking results of the research.

Most often we hear people describe sunny days in the park, views from the Law, their favourite streets and public spaces.

But more than just enjoying the city’s green and urban surroundings, many of the people we’ve encountered mostly value places that can be or have the potential to be shared, explored and enjoyed with family and friends.

The way we design our public spaces and the protection and nourishment of our surroundings is as fundamental to a happy outlook in Dundee as it is to our urban counterparts in Indonesia.

We all want fulfilling and joyful connections with our surroundings and with others. If we can design beautiful spaces, perhaps we can also design a sense of responsibility and empathy to help them grow.

Let the signs read “Do Enjoy”.