VergeNYC 2017: "Let's Talk About Invisibility"

We often assume that if we can’t see something, it isn’t there. If we can’t smell it, taste it, touch it, it doesn’t exist. More, we’re unlikely to dig deeper to discover what we can’t see, especially when we don’t know that we need to. But it’s as true of society as it is of the human body — the closer you look, the more there is to see. The more complexities become apparent. If we choose to invest time and energy into understanding our makeup, we’ll be able to make the invisible, visible.

This is exactly what VergeNYC had in mind in their third annual design event, held this year from the 22nd to the 24th of February. Created and organized by Parsons School of Design MFA Transdisciplinary students, in partnership with other leaders in the field, VergeNYC’s goal is to unite social action and design in order to galvanize the movement towards transdisciplinary design. As such, it’s a merging of voices from various parts of the community in order to create the greatest social impact.

In the past, this event has been centered around topics including “Action in the Face of Uncertainty” and “Elasticity.” VergeNYC 2017’s theme of “Invisibility” provided a timely and powerful response to the murky political and social climate prevalent today.

Students, experts and community leaders of various disciplines were gathered to provide two and a half days of workshops, open discussions, and lectures to help make tangible the intangible. Their discussions advanced beyond simple design decisions, posing questions about everything from the intersection of mind and machine, to the causality between climate chaos and cognition:

Ultimately, VergeNYC 2017 asked us to examine our presumptions about the world and consider how to take action. Director of Design at Healthy Materials Lab, Jonsara Ruth, who opened the event Wednesday night, presented listeners with a similar challenge: to take a closer look at our homes and the materials that surround us.

We trust the objects in our homes. As far as many of us are aware, we have no reason not to, and thus don’t find a need to look further. We find comfort in our couches and our beds, we enjoy the water we drink, and we believe that the disinfectants we use are making our homes safer. Unfortunately, these everyday household items are not as innocuous as they seem:

Even though these pollutants occupy space in almost every home worldwide — present in everything from flame retardants in our upholstery to lead in our water — they often go unnoticed. Herein lies the problem with letting the invisible lie: not being able to see the issue makes it easy to remain unaware of it, but it does not mean it doesn’t exist. In this case, these chemicals have been linked to major health harm, including chronic asthma, infertility and obesity — many of which can be avoided.

You might ask — so what? How does this involve me? What can I, as a designer, do to solve this? Design is often assumed to be limited to physicality: the cut of a cloth, the number of legs in a chair, the creative angles of a bookshelf. But as Professor Ruth reminded listeners Wednesday night, “designing experience is the core practice of designers.”

Designers greatly influence people’s lived experience — and with that great responsibility, they must make great efforts to understand the effects their objects make, emotionally and physically, and take action. Thus, Healthy Materials Lab has dedicated itself to raising awareness about toxicants in materials and building products and to creating resources for the next generation of designers and architects. With people placed at the center of design decisions, this world will be a healthier place for all people to live.

Our homes and our lives should be as safe as we think they are. But to make that possible, we need to know what’s happening in them, right now. Thanks to organizations like VergeNYC, Healthy Materials Lab, Parsons and others like them who have made it their mission to shed light on otherwise invisible truths, we the people will be able to make informed decisions, centered around leading healthier lives.

It’s important, especially now, to ask questions. To seek the truth. To dig a little deeper and make visible even those aspects of living that are intangible. We aren’t bound to the way life is now. We can and should take our lives into our own hands and create a better future. There’s no better time than now.