Future Experiences: Wise Women
Wise Women is aimed at improving access to healthcare for women in rural communities within the Global South, whilst simultaneously creating roles for women in the healthcare system. The Wise Women combine traditional healing methods and approaches with modern medicine. They are trusted members of the community, whose role is to advise other women about preventative health measures, treat simple conditions, and refer more complex cases to specialists.They use wearable ‘Techxtiles’, created from weaving together fabric and conductive fibres, to aid diagnostics and treatment.
Future Experiences: Wise Women
This speculative project builds upon current roles of women in the textile industries within some African cultures and explores a natural evolution of this industry as the technological abilities of the world develop. Crucially this project highlights a shift from the clinical ‘West is best’ mindset, towards one of empathy and touch. At the core, the Wise Women service is a sustainable loop of knowledge and skill sharing from one generation to another. Young women are offered the opportunity to become a community Wise Woman and are trained by their elders eventually passing on their knowledge to the next generation.
Future Experiences: Wise Women
The hook moment for this project emerged during insightful conversions I had with the experts from Sustainable Futures in Africa. We discussed issues surrounding the ongoing obstruction of women rights in the rural communities of Sub-Saharan Africa. In particular I was most driven to learn about access to healthcare for women and girls. I began to question what an empowered women could resemble within this context and was particularly inspired by historical Matriarchies like the Akan society which had existed in Ghana until the 1950s.
Future Experiences: Wise Women
The development stage led me to explore the current domestic textile making techniques used in the African textile industry. For me this felt like one way of connecting with my users’ experiences, something I always strive to do in my design practice. As well as exploring tech weaving I investigated cultural traditions of scarification and tattooing: even pushing the idea further by exploring “tech tattoos” that would allow for palm to palm diagnosis, an idea that really tied into my wish to create a health system that encouraged touch and empathy.
Future Experiences: Wise Women
This project aims to highlight the issue of gender equality in rural communities of the Global South. In particular women’s access to, and roles within, healthcare systems. I propose a preferable future: one that sees women able to seek care whilst also being able to aspire to be an educated and working woman. The project also explores the development in medical textiles, a concept that is at the forefront of future thinking in the health and design sectors.
Self Initiated: Interventions for the Worried Well
The ‘Worried Well’ are a group of people particularly anxious about their health, resistant to reassurance and are perceived to be disproportionate users of health services. Interventions for the Worried Well consists of a family of five annoying but well intentioned objects that aim to stimulate the senses, interrupting negative thought cycles surrounding health. This re-education of anxious minds aims to help users cope with their thoughts at home and creates a pause in a moment of panic.This project challenges conventional healthcare methods, and speculates upon playful solutions.
Self Initiated: Interventions for the Worried Well-
I began this project investigating ‘health anxiety’, a topic I had no idea would become so relevant just a few months later. Many of us, particularly in the current climate, feel anxious about our health. For some, these common feelings can become all consuming. These people are known to health professionals as the ‘Worried Well’. I had the pleasure of working with three General Practitioners and a Postdoctoral Research Associate in psychology and neuroscience. They were essential in helping me uncover the many issues at play for both the Worried Well and the health professionals who care for them.
Self Initiated: Interventions for the Worried Well
The crux of the project came while exploring the journeys of the Worried Well with one of the General Practitioners. She explained the importance of intervening before the worrier makes the choice to seek help which in itself can unintentionally feed their anxiety further. This brought about the idea of creating a ‘pause and reassess’ stage in the user journey before contacting a professional.
Self Initiated: Interventions for the Worried Well
The development stage of this project did not go as expected. Due to the current pandemic, I had to think of inventive ways to create and test my ideas. Fortunately I enjoy making by hand and I believe the challenge of working with the materials to hand in fact developed my visual semantics further. I explored a range of approaches such as stop-motion animation and extensive model making and testing of materials to advance my level of visual comminution.
Self Initiated: Interventions for the Worried Well
My objects were inspired by the renowned ‘54321 technique’, where an anxious person will concentrate on locating sense stimuli e.g. five things they see, four things they can touch and so on. While our minds have the ability to spiral and exaggerate our physical bodies anchor us to reality. Acknowledging the senses reconnects us to our physical body and acts as a tether to reality. This grounding allows the worried well to reassess their thoughts and consider symptoms more rationally, reducing unnecessary concern and visits to the doctor.